


√π233/hy7 Drabbles

by waldorph



Series: Illogical (√π233/hy7) [25]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Drabble Collection, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-05
Updated: 2010-01-10
Packaged: 2018-03-04 12:20:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 40
Words: 19,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3067625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waldorph/pseuds/waldorph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Various drabbles that I never migrated over from LJ</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Cupcake

**Author's Note:**

> This made me so nostalgic! If any of these were prompted by you and we've lost touch, leave me a comment with your twitter and/or tumblr url so I can find you assholes again. :D
> 
> Thanks to [crudelotus](http://crudelotus.tumblr.com/) for asking me to find these!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **devilishdestiny **: how is Cupcake doing?****

_Henderson_ is doing fine. See, this is the problem. Fucking pussy-mama's-boys like Kirk get famous and suddenly I'm the dick. 

You'd've punched his smug face in, too. Civilians just should fuck out of Starfleet business. 

You know I made it onto the Enterprise, right? When the whole mess went down. They took top cadets, and I was one of 'em. Did my job. Didn't even hit Kirk when we put it into the shuttle. Thought Spock came around then. Showed me. 

You know Kirk's only in 'cause he's sucking Spock's cock. Only captain 'cause Pike sucked his daddy's. Only reason he got the ship. And now he's got the ship and I'm on the _Jimmy Carter_ , doing fucking patrol like I didn't train four years to be security officer. 

"Black marks" they say. Yeah. That cunt Kirk shot off his mouth and his pussy-whipped Vulcan made to put in some strong words. And now I'm like a glorified security guard, and that fucking Scottish psychotic has Uhura. 

Yeah. Fucking great.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **dmlpacker** : How would Captain Kirk of the √π233/hy7 verse respond to/deal with sleazy amorous advances towards his Spock?
> 
> (*sighs* I'm just a sucker for this trope. Unoriginal, I know)
> 
> Oh darnit. Now I can't decide if I want to vice versa the question instead. I leave it at your discretion.

**Kirk**  
The thing is, it wouldn't be a problem, usually, because Spock's glare'o'doom is actually doom-like. Jim knows. He's been on the receiving end.   
  
But they're on ship leave and Uhura said they had to come to some club so they're in San Francisco clubbing it up like they're still in the Academy. Pike is so going to be calling him in the morning because someone's going to get a picture.   
  
And Spock's got this guy just  _all over_  him. Probably with the 'endangered species' kink. Kind of makes Jim just want to shoot him, but Janet made sure he left the phasers in the armory. Fucking Yeoman.   
  
"Hi," he says.   
  
"We're having a conversation," the guys says.   
  
"You're not," Jim disagrees, grinning and sliding an arm around Spock's waist, tucking fingers inside Spock's waistband. Yep, there's the amused eyebrow flick. "Conversations entail two people exchanging dialogue. You're monologuing at him."   
  
"What, you've got a claim? C'mon, what's a jumped up cadet got going for him?" the guy asks Spock.   
  
"Jumped up cadet," Jim mouths incredulously.   
  
"yeah," he says out loud. He reaches out, gives the guy's junk a squeeze and he's so shocked he lets Jim get away with it: element of surprise. Jim lives by that. "Limp dick, baby. Small, clearly compensating."   
  
"You-"   
  
But Jim's yanked Spock in for a dirty, filthy kiss.   
  
"You could have merely said we were married," Spock points out when Jim lets him surface. His hair's mussed and his lips look owned, and fuck he's beautiful. And Jim's.   
  
"Yeah, but that was more fun."  
  
"Public molestation?"   
  
"Of him or you?"   
  
Spock gives him a long look and Jim grins at him, moving to the beat holding Spock's hips against his. "You love it."

* * *

 **Spock:**  
For as many planets irrationally dislike him, they all seem to concur that he is a very attractive representation of the species.   
  
Which is why he is unsurprised to find the captain at the bar of a nondescript planet, looking bored as three men in leather attempt to pursuade him to be their "entertainment" for the evening.   
  
Unsurprised, but displeased.   
  
"Jim."  
  
"Spock. Thank fucking God. Look, see? Husband. Go the fuck away."   
  
It is remarkable that the captain has not drawn a weapon, but Jim has always been oddly yeilding to bar harassment.   
  
Spock blames his misguided career choices as a youth.   
  
"Husband?" one of the leather-clad men snorts. "I think not. You need a real man, boy."   
  
"Please leave," Spock says, sliding in to stand at Jim's shoulder.   
  
"You gonna make us?"   
  
"I believe we will find the atmosphere more pleasant at another bar," Spock tells Jim.   
  
"Look, we're talking. You can fuck off, Vulcan."  
  
Jim makes a muffled sound that suspiciously resembles choked laughter. Spock reaches out and pinches the three of them.   
  
"Shall we?"  
  
"You're so hot when you're jealous."   
  
"I was not jealous, I had no cause to be."  
  
"Protective, then," Jim amends, shoving him into an alley beside the bar and kissing him. "Fucking hot."   
  
Some days, Spock suspects Jim allows himself to be cornered.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **storm_of_roses** : How did the Kelvin survivors feel about Nero's second attack? Were many of them killed in round 2?

There was Hastings. He commits suicide, seven years later. Can't get the images out of his head. He doesn't know how Pike does it. How the kid managed to get them all out of there whe he had no authorization, and then write that fucking dissertation and still stand up on his own two feet. 

He doesn't leave anyone behind. These days no one remembers his name. He would have died when the ships went to Vulcan.

* * *

Takagi sticks it out. He gets cushy jobs for a while; works on designing and developing the Enterprise, and she's gorgeous. But you've got to have a head for politics, is the thing, and he doesn't, not for this. Not for...not for the Kelvin's aftermath. The only peopel with a head for politics are Pike, Number One (and that's really her name. No, really) and Winona Kirk. 

Only Kirk's too smart to play the games. 

He's with the Armada when Vulcan goes down. He's relieved. He's not sure how he feels that Chris Pike walked (oh, whoa-it's ... just the figure of speech, though they say he'll be up walking any day now) away from the Kelvin and the Vulcan Genocide. Not sure.

* * *

She just looks at them. Doesn't say anything. Doesn't have to. 

Ship that came out of lightening that they dismissed. Said must have gone down. Let the Klingons deal with it. 

If her kid- her kid had died? Starfleet would need new admirals. She really would have killed them all. 

They know. 

She doesn't say anything. She doesn't have to.

* * *

Hutaka comes out of warp with the kids, sees what's happening and doesn't have time to radio help. 

Dead, floating ice cold in space. Luck's run out. Go down with the ship. You don't survive ships that come out of black holes twice.

* * *

Tully runs through the burning ship. They're losing atmo, in seconds they're going to be gone. 

She kind of expects to hear George Kirk giving evac orders and Chris Pike shouting over the screaming death throes of the ship, getting them all to safety. 

He's dying too, out there. Their numbers have come up. She inhales even though it doesn't make any difference. Feels the shock of cold and then is dead. Floating.

* * *

He is not dead. 

She is waiting as the shuttle comes in and he looks at her, weary but smiling. "They did great." 

"You are wounded." 

"I was _tortured_." 

"You are medicated." 

"Oh yell hes. Hell. Hell yes." 

He takes her hand and she exhales smoothly. "Well done, Captain." 

"Thank you, Number One. It's good to be back." 

"It is not displeasing to have you back." 

He is not dead. 

Of the 800 who escaped the _Kelvin_ , 132 committed suicide due to the lack of funding for trauma care for those who lived on outer planets. They are down to 374 survivors. Cut in more than half. 

But _he_ is not dead.


	4. T'hy'la

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **vellum** : spock post spock!prime's story. like after the 'visiting new vulcan' scene.

_T'hy'la._    
  
It turns, uncomfortable, in his head. Voiced  _so_  easily. Unquestioningly.   
  
He is not comfortable sharing space with the Ambassador. He is not comfortable with the residual  _claim_  the Ambassador has on Jim. His mind twists along Jim's as easily as Spock's because it  _is_  Spock's.   
  
His expression softens and his eyebrows rest as though looking at Jim is all he needs. As though he loves Jim.   
  
But this Jim is  _Spock's_ , and he is not the Ambassador. They are the result of their experiences, not biology.   
  
And when the Ambassador departs Spock cannot bring himself to be compassionate when something strangely possessive boils under his skin. He has lost his planet and his mother, and he will not lose Jim.  
  
"You are mine," he whispers harshly against Jim's neck late that night.   
  
Jim blinks at him almost lazily, edges to his smile so sharp they might slice. "Yeah?"   
  
"I do not share well."   
  
"Shame, 'cause I was thinking we could invite the Ambassa—"   
  
And Jim is deliberately riling him, and Spock is aware of it, but it does not prevent him from pushing Jim down into the bed and covering his mouth with his own to prevent the words.   
  
Jim's mind is lazy trails of humor and lust and he arches up, presses the whole of his body against Spock's.   
  
When Spock pulls away Jim's eyes are heavily-lidded, but the smile is still in place. "Sure? I mean, he's old, but I bet— _fuck_!"   
  
Spock tightens his hand on Jim's balls and Jim makes a high keening noise.   
  
"Jim, if you cannot keep quiet I will gag you," he warns. Jim's mouth is open and he is panting, face flushed. "Do you understand me?"   
  
He punctuates it with a slide of his finger over the smooth skin behind Jim's balls.   
  
Jim nods. He is leaking against his stomach, Spock notes. Fascinating.   
  
"On your knees."   
  
He slides back to allow Jim space to get on his hands and knees, and then he settles behind him, running his hand up Jim's thigh to his ass, squeezing lightly and hearing the stutter of breath that usually precedes a low moan, and then a hitching breath as Jim catches the sound and keeps it in.   
  
Using both hands to open him up, Spock swirls his tongue around Jim's hole.   
  
He wants to break Jim open, leave him gasping for it, for Spock. For  _him_.   
  
It is remarkable how little it takes- broad strokes with the flat of his tongue and probing swirls with the tip and Jim is shaking, face buried in the pillow, body already hot on New Vulcan's surface breaking into a fine sheen of sweat. At this point Jim would ordinarily be begging, threatening or cajoling, but now he simply shoves back, body begging as (more) eloquently than his mouth.   
  
He reaches into the tangled sheets for the lubricant that they have left—this is their first shore leave where neither of them has a pressing need to see someone or attend a meeting or conference, and Spock admits that there is something heady about being able to lay in with Jim, something strangely erotic about not having to go on shift in three hours, about being sleepy and languid and lazy as they fuck.   
  
He pulls back from Jim's body and Jim exhales shakily. He is down on his shoulders, like an offering, and Spock will take.   
  
He slides into Jim, who has not completely tightened from their earlier coupling. It is a tight fit, and Jim's body is still resistant and Spock shoves a hand between Jim's shoulderblades to keep him down, slides the hand down to grip the back of Jim's neck and keep him shoved into the pillows, the other tight on Jim's hip.   
  
Jim is broadcasting faint pain, but overlying it are wafting currents of desperate lust and a hungry sucking need.

Spock moves, shallowly fucking him and Jim tries to arch into him, press back, get more, but Spock wants to break him, just a little.   
  
He shifts the angle, rocks against Jim's prostate, watches Jim's fingers scrabble at the sheets as he clamps down on Spock's cock. Spock lifts an amused brow and continues.   
  
Jim is fighting for breath, now, lungs gasping but Spock keeps him facing into the pillow, and switches to deep smooth thrusts.  
  
He's beginning to shake in earnest, and Spock can feel how close he is, leans over him, presses his chest against Jim's back and says, low in his throat, "Do not come yet."   
  
Jim gasps and Spock takes pity, shifts and grips Jim's hair, pulling him back and shifting the pressure around Spock's cock. He bites a kiss to Jim's neck, and then bites his shoulder and Jim is begging, not speaking but blowing their bond wide open and pleading for release.   
  
 _No._  
  
Jim's breath is rasping, and when Spock comes it comes from nowhere with so little warning, hard and pulsing into Jim's body and Jim whimpers—cannot seem to help it and Spock is in no position to begrudge him it. He pulls out and flips Jim over, settles between his legs and sucks—barely has time to think,  _Now_  before Jim is coming down his throat, a mangled sound tearing from his throat and his whole body tensing with it, so hard Spock feels he's come again.   
  
"T'hy'la," he whispers as Jim pulls him in for a kiss, panting against him, their limbs already impossibly tangled.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **screamlet** : SPOCK

It was to satisfy his emotional need to rebel.   
  
It was to prove that if they didn't want him, he was not going to cower and  _beg_.   
  
He went to a planet he knew only vaguely, from stories his mother told of a city drenched with rain.   
  
His city was not. It was loud and transient and diverse. They were all searching, and he was there, uncertain of his footing but certain at least of that.  
  
They have no idea what to do with him. He is far beyond their cirriculum; he is far beyond  _them_.   
  
He was first in his year. His academic record on Vulcan was flawless. He is the strongest touch-telepath in generations. Facts. Truths. If Vulcan had princes, he would be one of them. Black Prince, perhaps.   
  
Child of two worlds, belonging to neither.   
  
"Teach," Pike had said. "Maybe you'll find it."   
  
"To what do you refer?"  
  
"Whatever it is you're looking for."   
  
Terran conversation is convoluted. It is not the lying which is difficult—lies are easy to spot when one has only heard the truth. It is the way that they do not say what they mean, or that they think in abstract metaphor.   
  
Spock has a purpose: he is in Starfleet.   
  
To suggest that he is waiting for an ephemeral… entity or event is something only a Terran would do.   
  
He dines with his parents at the embassy when they are on the planet. Walks with his mother through the streets of San Francisco.   
  
Leaving the equations on the board satisfies an emotional need to throw into apathetic students' faces their own inadequacies. Pike deals with it his way, Spock deals with it in his, and they are neither happy.   
  
#  
And then there it is. Perfectly correct in slanting black lines the answer.   
  
And again.   
  
And again.   
  
The fourth time he watches the human male settle on a desk and chew his lower lip as he works through it.   
  
The tension in his shoulders bleeds out, the crease between his brow fades. It is 20:00 hours.   
  
The math is perfect, and only when he is sure of it does he make himself known.  
  
His eyes are very blue when Spock says, "You are not a cadet, nor a member of Starfleet."   
  
"No," the man agrees.   
  
"And yet you have solved four of my problems."  _And have failed to claim credit for any of them_ , he does not add. "I promised an immediate A and a recommendation and commendation for the student who first solved the problem here. An A would mean nothing to you, a commendation, given that you are not in fact a member of Starfleet, would be superfluous and inconsequential. Would you like a recommendation to get into the Academy?"   
  
The human looks prepared to laugh, and shoves his hands into his pockets. "No."   
  
"That is illogical, please explain."   
  
He takes a hand out of his pocket to run over his face and scratch through his hair. "It's just math. Doesn't mean I want to go up…there."  
  
Spock follows the wave of his hand out the window, towards the stars beyond. The interesting thing about Terrans is that they lie without realizing it, because they so frequently lie to themselves.   
  
"I won't say no to a drink," the man offers. Spock nods.   
  
"I will get my coat," he says, and takes him to a restaurant by the embassy. It can be reasonably counted on to prepare Vulcan cuisine, and he has not yet eaten.   
  
The man slouches and splays his legs with a grin that invites Spock in on the humor of the situation. Spock takes a moment to survey why there should be humor: the man does not fit, and the other patrons are uncomfortable.   
  
They are an interspecial couple, and he is the son of a Vulcan and a Human, which a fair percentage of the clientele in the room know.   
  
"Jim Kirk," the man says. "Yeah, I'll get the bacon burger and fries. A lot of fries. With salt—and not like, you know. Skins on fries. I want honest-to-god fries. Can I get that?" he asks Spock, who lifts an eyebrow at him.   
  
"I believe they can accomodate that request," he says, and realizes that he is, in fact, laughing with Jim Kirk. It is most unexpected.

The waiter huffs but is appeased when Spock orders traditional dishes which will tax their very expensive chef.   
  
"So, you got a last name, Commander Spock."   
  
"You are not a pupil, it is appropriate that you refer to me by my given name. As to a surname…you could not pronounce it."   
  
"Aw, c'mon. I've got a talented tongue."   
  
"I am sure you can supply references to that effect," Spock agrees. "However, it will not be necessary."   
  
Jim grins at him over his glass of water. He does not seem to mind Spock watching him, and so Spock does not make a conscious effort to stop.   
  
"Are you a consultant?" Spock asks as Jim devours his burger.   
  
"No. I'm a bartender," Jim replies, and leans his chair onto its back two legs.   
  
Spock does not understand—he comprehends, but does not understand.   
  
"There is a 67.8% chance you will overbalance," he informs Jim. "And there is an 89.4% chance that you will give the maitre'd a headache from stress."   
  
"Good for him," Jim replies, but lowers the chair. "Gets the blood flowing."   
  
He is content to let Spock pay the bill, and Spock is content to pay it.   
  
"So," Jim says, pushing his hands into his pockets. "I gotta say, that was probably the worst burger I have ever had."   
  
"I am sorry you found it less than satisfactory."   
  
"Don't worry about it. I'll make you make it up to me." He hails a taxi and grins, moving in as though he intends Spock to join him. If Spock were uncharitable, he would suspect this is a ploy to make Spock pay.   
  
It is.   
  
#  
  
Spock is very good at what he does. He executes his duties as XO, and chief science officer flawlessly.  
  
He has an unparalleled ear for music and an unparalleled eye for art: his is the product of his upbringing.   
  
His emotional control has only ever been broken once since he reached adulthood. Given the circumstances he finds himself in on a monthly basis he would suggest that this is no small feat.   
  
He is skilled at hand-to-hand combat. He can hack a system and he can shoot a target at 600 yards, given proper weaponry and conditions.   
  
He is a member of an endangered species, and it seems that there are times when every mission would remind him of that. When a Vulcan crewmember dies it is more devastating because to his  _race_  it must be more devastating than to any other race. Each life is infinitely more precious.   
  
And there are days when he thinks that he has lost so much of who he was when he refused the Vulcan Science Academy. He is as angry, but for different reasons. He has blood on his hands and has lost a dear mother. He has bonded with a Terran male. And so much of him is wrapped up irrevocably with Jim.   
  
Admiral Pike has said that Jim was the thing Spock was seeking before he knew he was looking. It is perhaps true, but would suggest one subscribed to a philosophy of predestination. Which, raised as a Vulcan, Spock cannot.   
  
However, he has an older counterpart from an alternate reality walking around masquerading as his father's cousin, and Jim has a head full of memories of a life they never led, and a galaxy which seems by the day more and more determined to throw its worst at them.   
  
"Fine" has variable definitions. But one of them must, surely, apply.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **screamlet** : i want more bones plz? what. um. $question.

"I don't actually like you," he tells Spock, because it's important to come out with this shit. He glances around: yep, abandoned, and this is a nice covered spot behind crates. They're…well, "safe" is a stretch.   
  
"I am shocked by this revelation," Spock deadpans. Fucking deadpans. The man is  _bleeding out_  and he's deadpanning.   
  
Okay, McCoy's not actually that surprised. At all. But he just feels that it should be noted.   
  
Only, they're the only two here, in a warehouse in the middle of a fucking gang war. Because those are the kinds of planets they end up on. Planets that have gang wars. Or genocides. Or civil wars. Or  _tribbles_  (no, okay? He is not going to get over that. Because Scotty had one for  _years_  it was bright orange and fine, it was kept perfectly small and content and then Uhura gets ahold of one and they're up to their goddamn eyeballs in the little fuckers).  
  
And of course fucking M'Benga's nowhere to be found. Or T'Pon. He's going to make that woman a surgeon if it kills him. Physics his ass. Does the ship need more physicists? No. Clearly what it fucking needs is more fucking surgeons.   
  
Jesus  _fucking_  Christ.   
  
"You just conserve some energy and go into a trance or something," McCoy mutters at Spock, a beat too late. Whatever. He's trying to keep the asshole alive. Pardon him if his fucking banter rhythm isn't up to snuff. He'll take lessons from Jim, Captain-Witty-One-Liners-In-the-Face-of-Danger-Watched-Han-Solo-Too-Much-As-A-Child-Kirk when they get back to the ship.   
  
Spock's damn eyebrow goes up and McCoy considers the fact that he never went through a pranking phase and maybe it would be fucking hilarious while Spock is unconscious to  _shave them off_.  
  
"Appropriate"'s probably the wrong word.   
  
"In the event that—" Spock begins and winces—honest to fuck winces and that's when McCoy begins to think maybe there's more damage than he's been informed of and wishes that he had his tricorder because now he's just going to cut the asshole's shirt off, watch him.   
  
"Don't move." He ripes and slices with the knife in Spock's boot, careful because Spock's an asshole and maybe McCoy honestly can't stand him oh, 71% of the time, but he's a patient and McCoy's a fucking good doctor in spite of his patients.   
  
"Doctor. In the event that I should not make it back to the —"  
  
"You are not doing this to me. You are  _not_  widowing fucking Jim because then  _I_  will have to attempt to pick up the fucking pieces. And that  _asshole_  Scott will give him full access to alcohol and the rest of them will cower. I'll have to join forces with Uhura, so don't even  _give_  me this bullshit about dying, because I'm not letting you."   
  
"I do not believe you can reasonably prevent it. You are without many of your tools." Way to point out the obvious. Do they teach that on Vulcan? Did they? Shit, past tense, and he's got this sick guilty feeling in his stomach. 'Cause he might be an asshole, but he's not  _that_  much of an asshole.   
  
"Oh yeah?  _Watch me_ ," he challenges, and gets to fucking work.   
  
Spock passes out, which is a relief both because operating on an awake, unanesthesized patient is nerve-wracking and Spock just manages to piss him off.   
  
And there are guns going off outside and they lost their comms in the fucking  _lake_  they had to fucking run through.   
  
Threw the dogs off their scent: he wouldn't have thought of that. Spock's clever. Right until he got himself fucking  _shot_.   
  
He's got seven bullets. Three of 'em went right through, and McCoy's got a needle and stitching thread in the hem of his pants because  _have you met Jim_?   
  
Plus he was an honest-to-shit boy scout.   
  
 _Don't_  tell Jim.   
  
Jesus fucking Christ.   
  
Anyway, he's got them stitched, and then he's got his shirt staunching blood and hoping fucking Chekov is earning his fucking pay because sooner or later these gangbangers are going to put "cover" and "warehouse" together in a sentence (he's not optimistic about a timeframe—they're not particularly intelligent) and they're going to be even more fucked.

They get beamed up and he's already snarling for M'Benga because that  _motherfucker_  why did he even  _recruit_  him he's so fucking  _useless_.   
  
They get Spock into surgery and Jim gets them the hell out of there—does a daring rescue, how the fuck should McCoy know? He's just not bugging McCoy, which means he's still on-duty and thank fuck for small miracles.   
  
Spock goes into a healing trance and M'Benga looks up and says, "So…now we're going to operate on you, right?"  
  
And that's bout the minute he realizes he got shot in the side. It just cut out a chunk of muscle and skin, he's  _fine_ , but they make him lay down so M'Benga's in charge, that asshole.   
  
Christine sits beside him and absolutely doesn't cry, just sits there and looks at his knees and clenches her jaw.   
  
And he wants to say  _sorry_  of all ridiculous things.   
  
"So, you got shot," Jim says, sitting beside him and grinning that fucking shit-eating grin that could probably get him laid on fucking Romulus.  
  
"I feel like shit. I blame you," he tells him. Because he  _does_. Well, no, he blames Jocelyn, but Jim's here.   
  
"Bones." Ah, right there. The slight turn towards Spock, who McCoy's sure M'Benga and Christine and T'Pon have all assured Jim will be fine. But Jim's kind of like a kid who can hear it from the fucking president but not believe it until he hears it from his dad.   
  
Not that McCoy's his dad, it's just—he's Jim's family, here. God help him.   
  
"He's fine. Stop fussing, Jesus Christ you're like a housewife."   
  
"That's nice. I love you too," Jim says earnestly, and Christine, because she hasn't learned about humoring Jim yet, laughs. _She'll learn_.   
  
"What happened?" Because he's pretty sure he'd've refused to go down if there'd been any mention of gang warfare. And he's pretty sure they would have  _picked up on it_ , although to be fair it waited for two hours before breaking out on streets that had seemed very safe and ordinary moments before. Like someone flipped a goddamn switch.   
  
"We got set up by intel again," Jim scoffs.   
  
Someday McCoy's pretty sure Jim is going to do something drastic, like kill the entire diplomatic corps.   
  
Not really.   
  
Well, not most days.   
  
Today Jim's clearly contemplating it. McCoy grins to himself: he loves that homicidal bastard.   
  
"I fucking love you," he tells Jim. Then he glares at M'Benga. "The fuck did you give me?"   
  
"It's a sleeping aid, shut the fuck up and enjoy it," M'Benga says, glaring right back.   
  
He kind of loves all these bastards. Even Spock. Just don't  _tell_  him.   
  
Jim's laughing. "Oh god, someone be recording this."   
  
Well, shit. "I'm going to sleep," he announces. "Don't fuck up my sickbay while I'm out," he warns all his nurses. He should probably do something about the fact that they all (the ones who aren't Vulcan, anyway) smile at him indulgently.


	7. Laughing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **zippitgood** : Uhura and the keeping of Montgomery Scott.

The thing about him is, he actually is a terrible person.   
  
He has  _no_  people skills, reads the moods of situations completely wrong, and can't stay sober when he's with Jim for more than five minutes.   
  
And sometimes she's pretty sure she's fighting a ship for his affections and  _losing_.   
  
He forgets to wash, his hair is that short because  _Keenser_  takes a razor to him.   
  
And thank small miracles for Keenser, who gives her deep looks of kinship and fellow feeling as she stalks down into the engine rooms where he is, inevitably, hiding.   
  
Some days he walks down to the hall wet and Kirk will stop and look at him and say, "If you broke my ship, Scotty—"  
  
"She tried to break me!"   
  
And then it will devolve from there because Jim Kirk is the kind of captain who could actually do his chief engineer's job, but Scotty's the kind of chief engineer who never feels threatened by that.  
  
He likes things like blood pudding and Kirk always takes him down when they have to go to a dinner party because Scotty will eat _anything_  that he's offered and more than likely  _like_  it.  
  
When he reaches for her his fingers are callused and he can never seem to believe he  _has_  her, which means it always starts out slow and gentle but it never stays that way, goes hot and filthy and he has such talented fingers and a talented tongue, and there have been days when she's found herself deep in the  _Enterprise_ 's engine rooms, pinned against a wall and being fucked with her panties around one leg and her skirt rucked around her hips, the feel of his zipper pressing against her cunt because the bastard didn't even take his pants off.   
  
And even though he's awful with people and reads moods wrong all the time and looks at Spock blankly and is Jim's partner in crime in the way that they're  _both_  five—  
  
She loves him. Ridiculously, expansively in a big love kind of way.   
  
Even now, when he's covered with some ridiculous slime and they're all staring at him, and Jim has dismissed everyone else and now he's howling, hanging onto the banister laughing and trying to explain to her what happened while Scotty just looks at them all and Spock silently hands him a towel, which inexplicably makes Jim laugh  _louder_.   
  
"I get no sympathy," he tells her. "Not even a kiss?"   
  
"I'm not kissing you like that," she says, and barely has time to shout out a wordless protest before he's picked her up and bent her backwards for a deep kiss, which means whatever it is he's covered in is organic matter and nontoxic.   
  
"There. Now. I think," he says, looking her over as she tries to scrape slime off the front of her uniform and not laugh, "we need a shower. Captain. Commander." He nods to them and then, laughing, yanks her down the hall to his room.   
  
The thing is? She's pretty sure they'll be doing this when they're old and grey. She hopes so. She laughs a lot these days.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **merisunshine36** : So. Maggie. Word on the street is that you took Sarek shopping for his wedding gift to Amanda. I am dying to hear all about it.

The thing about the wedding is… she kind of expects someone to say "HAHAHA just a joke."   
  
And then she gets a formal invitation to the embassy and goes, "Well, fuck, this can't be good."   
  
It isn't.  
  
"Are we even talking about the same person?" she demands, tugging on her hair. Oh god. Aren't Vulcans supposed to be smart? It's lies. All lies. LIES.   
  
She is really tempted to get him to buy Mandy lingerie. Mostly because imagingng Amanda putting on lingerie is a stretch even Maggie can't make. And Maggie is pretty imaginative. Ask the twins.   
  
Actually don't because that was illegal on that planet and possibly only legal in the deep south of the United States.   
  
But the point is. Imagination. Maggie has it.   
  
Sarek does not.   
  
It's like a wooden plank. Only with legs. And a pointy-ass nose. And a shitton of clothes, what is that?   
  
"Buy me a coffee," she demands. "I can't—get me caffeine."   
  
He does. She's sort of surprised. Not surprised enough to say thanks. This is  _his fault_.   
  
"She likes books. Poetry. Obscure history. Uptight men," Maggie says expansively, waving her arms and then having to lick coffee off her arm because she spilled some, damnit. "Babies, Jane Austen. Any of the many many remakes of Pride and Prejudice. Though it probably wanes in comparison to having lived it," she muses, and he's just watching her.   
  
She kind of wants to snap in front of his face to make sure he hasn't like, expired. She's a doctor. She has more important shit to do than help him pick out a wedding present.   
  
"I don't know. You sort of screwed yourself with the relationship starting in death in the presents department," she muses. "You know. You can't get her something memorable from the funerals or the hospital." She looks at him and narrows her eyes. "When I say that I mean  _don't even consider it_."   
  
He lifts an eyebrow at her. Oh, they've got problems.   
  
"I don't know. What about jewelry? Got any heirlooms? Rings passed down through generations? A necklace from your mother?"  
  
"We do not take part in such customs."   
  
"Of course not. That'd be too easy. Yeah." She groans and drinks her coffee. "It's not like you should even get her a book, unless it's a first edition, which you probably have on Vulcan—"  
  
"The libraries on Vulcan are digital," he says.   
  
"All of them?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"You're  _fucking_  with me."  
  
"I am—"  
  
"Shut up. What about—you don't have written histories? What if the system went kaput?"   
  
"There are back ups on several Vulcan colonies."   
  
"Well shit. Get her a library."  
  
"I do not—"  
  
"Build her a library. You've got to have a giant house, take one of the rooms and convert it into a library with actual honest-to-fuck-all books with pages and everything. I'll draw you up a list. God. No books. How are you all not near-sighted?"   
  
She waves away the beginnings of his answer.  
  
"Rhetorical. Christ."  
  
"She will find this… an acceptable gift?"  
  
"Dude, I am getting you so laid for like, the rest of your life."   
  
He lifts a brow.   
  
She groans.  _"Yes._  She will find it 'an acceptable gift.'"  
  
She gets him a list of all the books Amanda loves, all the books she's wanted to read but never got around to, all the books she needs to read but never thinks about. Volumes of Beat poetry because Amanda has a problem, histories and Tudor biographies.   
  
Sarek sends her an image of it when it's complete. It looks fucking baller.   
  
Amanda comms her, after she's been married a few months. "Sarek says you helped him with the library?" she asks.   
  
"You married a plank of wood with legs and arms," Maggie informs her. "He owes me coffee the rest of my life."   
  
"Thank you," Amanda says softly. "Maggie."   
  
"Yeah, well. They don't have real books."   
  
It wasn't that horrible, anyway. Mostly. She got over that migraine. Eventually.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **easilymused1956** : How about... McCoy on living on 'Enterprise' with Jim and Spock? -Renee

This is a secret about Jim: he's actually really fucking bad at being  _human_. McCoy thinks it's probably the result of having a head full of numbers, or maybe the fact that Jim grew up in an abusive house, but regardless he's bad, sometimes, at feeling. Or maybe he's just better at being a captain.  
  
Like when they go to a planet in the middle of genocide because they're closest and all McCoy can see is goddamn starving faces and desperation that makes him feel like he's about to fly apart at the seams Jim's seeing the components of society; how to fix it. McCoy wants to help the individuals, Jim wants to help the society, and Spock's pointing out that maybe this is awful, but it's the logical conclusion to the pattern the Federation has been observing for more than a decade.   
  
And then McCoy wants to punch Spock right in his motherfucking face.   
  
And so the three of them will yell, and it's like he and Spock are playing tug of war and Jim's the flag in the middle of the rope. Some days the flag fucks off in an opposite direction and takes them with him, but most days they manage to reach a compromise.  
  
There are days when he loses. Days when they  _can't_  help—they have to leave the few people they've met to deal with the wreck of their own civilization.   
  
Jim is looking out for their own people—Spock's looking out for regulations and they're right—they can't bring people who are ticking bombs onto the  _Enterprise_  no matter how young they seem or how victimized they are.   
  
And those days he has a drink out of habit, the way that Jim will work on a problem or Spock will organize the reports. Not because they have to but because that's the preferred coping mechanism.   
  
There are other ships, he knows, where this isn't the way it works: where the CMO is distant and doesn't interfere, stays in her/his sickbay and mutters.   
  
There are other ships, but not better ones. Not ones where he keeps Jim's secrets and Jim keeps his, where Spock looks at him with haunted eyes from beside Jim's bed when Jim is recovery from whatever bout of fucking stupidity put him there.   
  
He and Spock will never get along, but Jim is their common denominator. And it's hard to hate someone who loves Jim.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **allie_meril** : Any example of Winona's particular brand of psychotic-ness, with George, on the Kelvin. :D

The thing is, they're not really supposed to be here. But once you sign on Starfleet owns you, and so they'd gotten it down to a year before the other XO can come on and—  
  
She doesn't… do well with Hastings.   
  
At all.   
  
And she's mad because she's pregnant and on a starship and he can't actually blame her for that.   
  
And she's never really liked the  _Kelvin_ 's engine structure, which actually is the worst thing of them all, because Winona can actually forgive a lot if she likes the ship.   
  
But he's XO and she's second of engineering but the de facto Chief Engineering Officer and Chief Security Officer and there's a lot of paperwork, and so, when their in a rec room and he's filling out paperwork and she's muttering and filling out paperwork and requisition forms, he doesn't say anything.   
  
The muttering and swearing makes her happy—vents the frustration that she never really figured out how to keep bottled up.  
  
Hastings walks in and it's Chris who says loudly, "Hey, Hastings!" in a truly obvious way that has  _everyone else_  tensing. George glances up and grins at the guy because he just  _likes_  him. Someday Chris Pike is going to do something truly ridiculous and George will point and say "I knew him when…"   
  
He's considering putting in to work with Chris once he gets his command. They'd work well together, he thinks. Chris grins back and goes back to his dissertation.   
  
Winona hasn't noticed yet that the rec room has gone relatively silent, and George turns back to the report he's got going for Archer.   
  
"Kirk."   
  
He looks up, because she won't. "Yeah?"  
  
"Not you, other Kirk."   
  
Yeah, she's still not looking up, but her forehead is smoothing out. Oh, this is—not good, not really. She shouldn't get this riled: the baby's probably going to come out screaming and deranged.   
  
" _Kirk_ ," Hastings barks. "Thought I told you to sort the issue with the nacelles!"   
  
He grabs her shoulder and she grips it and slams it down. George reaches out and grabs the pen so she can't stab it through his hand.  
  
Long story—Amanda Hallet, mild intoxication and him wiping his savings to bail her out of jail. He got it back but that's not the point. The point is? No pens for angry Winona.   
  
"See, sir, that's your porblem. I don't have security clearance to do it, and you're such a shrivelled-pricked paranoid that you won't give it to me. So don't come in here, when I'm already doing most of your paperwork, and bitch at me about the fucking hiccup with the nacelles."   
  
"Hiccup—look, Kirk, I didn't want you on this boat, and if I had my way we'd drop you—"  
  
"Hastings, you want to shut up," George interrupts as calmly and pleasantly as he can, but mostly he's just pulling up an incident report form on his PADD and beginning to fill it out.   
  
"—on the nearest M-Class planet we can find because everyone knows that you're—"  
  
"Is he  _drunk_?" Takagi demands in a hushed tone to the guy he's sitting with and George inhales—probably not. Hastings goes for the powders.   
  
"High," the guy Takagi's with shoots back.   
  
Winona pulls back and punches him, while he's reeling she grabs him, twists his arm behind him and begins frog-marching him towards the door.   
  
"Sweetheart."   
  
"Don't worry, I won't throw him in an airlock."   
  
She looks at him when she comes back and pulls her PADD to her.   
  
"How's the baby?"   
  
"Fine."   
  
"Hastings?"   
  
"Sickbay. Next time? He's going to OD on that shit."   
  
"Well," he says philosophically, leaning over the table to kiss her, "make sure you don't leave fingerprints when you cut it with bleach powder."


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **isoldam** : What would Winona Kirk and Spock's father say to each other?

She is an engineer.   
  
She works long hours and runs an effective crew, and that is all he knows of her.   
  
That, should you need something done or fixed, you go to the Terran woman with shaggy blonde hair who refuses to wear her uniform when she is deep inside machinery.   
  
He does not realize that she is Jim Kirk's mother until another member of Starfleet says, "You know what, I have no idea how to set this up. Can someone find me Kirk?"   
  
She'd come in, tied back her hair, taken a spanner into her teeth and slid underneath the cooling chambers.   
  
"Who the fuck wired this?" she demands, and several people shift uncomfortably. "It's even color coded!"   
  
The hologrid flickers to life and she slides back out, pulling her shirt back down from her midriff where it had twisted up.   
  
"How long have you been working on these things?"   
  
"I—"   
  
She throws wiring at the man and he catches it, looking terrified. "If you're so incompetent, I'll send you to work on construction."   
  
She is not yelling. It is a very curious thing.   
  
"Winona Kirk."   
  
"Yeah." She slides her hands into her back pockets and raises her eyebrows at him.   
  
"I am Sarek, my son is Spock."   
  
She looks at him as though expecting more then nods in greeting.   
  
"Would you like to share dinner with me?"   
  
"Have a chance to get away from the gruel they claim is food but I know is actually reconstituted waste?" It is rhetorical. "Sure. Let me just make sure we're not all about to die. Suck if the rest of the Vulcans died because Starfleet hires shitheads."   
  
He is… completely lost as to how to deal with that statement.   
  
Dinner is silent, which he does not expect, but does not fail to appreciate.   
  
"It doesn't get better," she says. "You can hide it or wear it on your sleeve. Doesn't get better, doesn't stop."   
  
"She did not die—well."   
  
"George did. Dead's dead. Who cares how they went?" She lifts her eyebrows at him. "Rumor mill has our kids fucking."   
  
He has absolutely no idea what to say to that. "Indeed."   
  
"Piss you off?"   
  
"Does it you?"   
  
"Little. If not for your kid, mind'd be safe pickling his brain on Earth."   
  
"If not yours, mine would be dead in the space around Vulcan."   
  
She looks at him, then raises her tea wryly. "Well, fuck."


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **twig_tea:** Was there any moment where Spock thought that Kirk might be just too much for him? I mean, technically this could be the marooning-on-delta-vega thing, but it doesn't have to be :D :D :D and of course if it ends with him changing his mind I'd like it even more XDD

It happens twice.   
  
The first is the marooning of Jim on Delta Vega, which Jim will always insist upon referring to as "Hoth."   
  
Spock lost his mother. He didn't grab her and Chekov could not grab her and now they are all that stands against Nero, and it is not enough. Jim can do the math as effectively as Spock: he must know this.  _They_  are not enough. They were spared because Nero seems to have a personal vendetta against Spock, and that is too large to think about and so he does not. He pushes it aside.   
  
And for the first time in knowing him, Spock looks at him as a stranger. This Jim is Captain James T. Kirk as he will be, utterly certain and speaking over Spock: unyielding and unflinching, not stumbling over the minutiae which stutters the rest of them: those who are believing they are existing within an alternate reality. He is acting as Pike instructed: Chris Pike survived the  _Narada_  once. It is illogical  _not_  to believe that Pike's instructions were based upon his experiences on the  _Kelvin_.   
  
Jim Kirk has never had command, and he must yield it now: Spock cannot command this ship if a man who was not ever meant to be aboard is undermining him. And Jim is undermining. Jim is  _distracting_ , and he is a man that nations would follow, and Spock cannot have it.   
  
He cannot be distracted by Jim. He cannot  _afford_  to be distracted.   
  
And if Jim is here, he will be distracted.   
  
And so he maroons him on an M-class planet where there is a Starfleet base.   
  
The second happens two hours later, when Jim is coldly, cruelly throwing his mother in his face.   
  
The logic of it is impossibly flawless. It is a mirror of his own actions: for him to be captain, Jim had to be removed. For Jim to be captain, Spock must be removed.   
  
And Jim touches him, after, a brush of fingers on the back of his hand and begins to speak and thinks better of it.   
  
There is mutual understanding and forgiveness, and they move on from it.   
  
But there are times when Jim sleeps and Spock comes in and he looks at his face and remembers what it feels like to be on the receiving end of Jim at his cruelest and wonder at it.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **izzyfics** : What makes Chapel tick?

She's not a kickass woman. She's met Jocelyn, and she's met Winona Kirk and her best friend is Nyota Uhura, and she's not like them.   
  
She likes tea and sitting and she likes taking care of people. She likes gossip and she likes to watch McCoy when he's so overwhelmed by the stupidity around him he can't even speak.   
  
She trains with Nyota because after getting taken hostage a few times she gets tired of it—because she's small and blonde and apparently that universally signals weakness.   
  
She's confident in who she is and how competent she is and she isn't about to back down to anyone, even though she's not aggressive about any of it.   
  
But.   
  
Spock kind of scares her, if she's honest, because he's so competent and even though she understands that he experiences emotion, just doesn't telegraph them, he still seems…cold. Like he finds them all wanting.   
  
It's not a Vulcan thing, though, because she loves working with T'Pon and Sarrip and T'Sier. They lift their eyebrows and make cultural observations and they never seem insulted when she laughs, or chokes on her laughter.   
  
With Spock—she feels inferior. The only fault she thinks she can find with Spock is that he's clearly in love with the captain. But even that seems unimpeachable—it has a sort of…grace and poetry to it.   
  
He's not cruel and he's always entirely professional and she is probably completely unjustified in feeling so put-off by him. But she is.


	14. We R Srs Stdnts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **betweenthebliss** : i'm interested in some lost or unseen moments from the academy-- anything with chapel, sulu, gaila, uhura or mccoy, though spock and kirk would be fantastic too. the funnier/drunker/sillier the better. :D

**Gaila and Nyota:**  
"I'm so drunk. I'm soooo drunk."   
  
"Shut up shut up shut up," Nyota groans.   
  
"Headache? Hangover? Wait, here. Tequila."   
  
"Oh my god, what time is it?"   
  
"Let's skip. Please can we skip? I know you're dripping because of the professor but god I hate you so much can we skip?"  
  
"Gaila."   
  
"He's not even—it's probably vanilla! Like—I will buy you a dildo."   
  
Nyota gives in, because when she stands up she almost dies.   
  
Then they go to OH GOD I'VE JUST CUM and Gaila blows most of her money and Nyota pretends to be embarrassed until she finds this awesome rotating vibrating dildo thing.

* * *

**Christine and McCoy:**  
So, he's brilliant, but he's an asshole.   
  
But they work really well together, and she likes him.   
  
When they fuck she tells him not to come, and then starts recounting the dissection they did. He laughs so hard he almost slips out, and then when they're dissecting another cadaver he loses it and has to go out to finish laughing and she smiles to herself and pretends to listen to the professor.

* * *

**Sulu:**  
Okay, so the thing is, he has one class with Jim Kirk, and that asshole is  _cray-zee_.   
  
"Did you do the homework?" Hikaru asks as Jim slides into the seat beside him.   
  
"Home…work?"   
  
"Yeah," Valling says, grinning slightly. "You know, it was on the board, you were playing air guitar?"   
  
"Shit. Wait."   
  
And then Jim Kirk stands up on the chair and gets everyone to give him their homework. The professor comes in, asks to collect it and Jim says he's holding it hostage until he's done quality assurance.   
  
Hikaru just laughs and laughs when Jim gets away with it.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Anonymous** : One of the crew gets stuck babysitting Jim's nephews and, you know, their Kirks so...Please? Also, what you did to Maggie? So not nice.

Hikaru has no idea how this happened. He'd been hanging out with Pete and Xander and Jules and—well, mini!Kirks, but they're not his Kirk, you know? Plus, they're 10, 8, and 6. So. You know.  
  
They weren't Jim.   
  
Hah.   
  
Pete grins at him and suggests the zoo.   
  
Sure, Hikaru remembers fondly his time at the Zoo. So he takes them.  
  
Except it's interactive. And mini-Kirk #1 blinks up at him and says, "Oh, Xander likes the snakes."   
  
And apparently Xander liking snakes is an understatement. Apparently, Xander, the eight year old, is known enough to the zookeepers that they use him.   
  
The eight year old.   
  
To track and grab snakes to extract venom.   
  
Manually.   
  
"I—"  
  
"Don't worry, Lieutenant," Peter Kirk says lazily, grinning, and shit, he's totally Jim. "He's only gone to the hospital twice."   
  
Jules leans against his leg. "Six times," he says. He's six.   
  
"What?'  
  
"Jules!"   
  
"What?"   
  
"Nuffin'."   
  
"AHAHAH I GOT IT OW SHIT I'M TOTALLY FINE DON'T GET MOM."   
  
And then there's this huge huge snake. Twenty feet long. Probably as big around as Hikaru.  
  
"Oh shit. Um, Xander! XANDER!" Pete shouts, gettin g up on the railing.   
  
Hikaru realizes he's going to have to rescue the small child from the monster snake because the academic zookeepers are  _useless_.   
  
"The fuck is—oh shit. Big snake," Jim says. Hikaru doesn't even ask where he came from, just looks at him gratefully. Jim grins back.  
  
"Um, Uncle Jim, this is totally not what—"  
  
"You didn't get Sulu to take you to the zoo you're not allowed to go to? And then let your brother go collect venom because academics are stupid?"  
  
"REALLY BIG SNAKE I AM NOT PREPARED TO HANDLE THIS EVENTUALITY," Xander is shouting. "UNCLE JIM PLEASE GET IN HERE."   
  
"Why, because I know about huge snakes? Sulu, I get in trouble you shoot to fucking kill the thing" Jim shouts, and vaults over into the enclosure. "I hate children," he informs Xander, scooping him up and jumping away from the snake. "I'm also not really fond of snakes. That whole incident on Gillian IV."  
  
"VI," Hikaru corrects.   
  
"Oh, excuse me. The whole Gillian system was really not a favorite of mine."   
  
The nephews hang off of their uncle and Hikaru tries to understand what the fuck happened.   
  
"Buy him ice cream," Jim tells Pete, who rolls his eyes, but gets Hikaru an ice cream.   
  
Okay, maybe they're not that bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original prompt:   
> _Ok, so Amanda would have made Maggie Spock's Godmother. She would have. So I want Maggie to meet Jim. How the meeting goes is totally up to you cuz anyway it turns out would be awesome._
> 
> Only I couldn't write that, because...Maggie? Yeah, she doesn't make it past Spock being 8- she goes to a planet to help treat a plague and contracts it, and then has an allergic reaction to the treatment and asphyxiates in her sleep.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **treaclemineroad** : I couldn't get this scene out of my mind after I read "Big damn heroes":
> 
>  _But, looking at the way McCoy is supervising the captain's scribbling and then muttering something about their apartment being covered, Pavel doesn't want to be. And he doesn't think the captain does either, as he lets McCoy pull the tablet from his fingers and administer another hypo. Kirk doesn't even complain, just wearily accepts it like he's disappointed in his brain; in his body—like they've somehow failed him._
> 
> How did this incident affect Jim in the long term/how did he and Spock deal with it?

He doesn't think about it. It's his tried and true method of dealing with situations like this: he just doesn't think about it.   
  
He lets Spock go over the reports and he signs off on the paperwork and tries not to feel like a bad captain for not being able to look at the words on the reports without wanting to be sick.   
  
Okay, actually, it's not his method of dealing with situations. Usually he's much more masochistic.   
  
But Bones looked… bad. Got quiet and softer and Spock looked—  
  
Well, never mind.   
  
So Jim's not going to needle.   
  
Spock's been keeping his shields up so Jim doesn't have to deal with the thoughts of someone else, even thoughts as familiar as Spock's.   
  
And they're fine.   
  
They're fine.   
  
Except for the next planet when they're telepaths.   
  
And the planet with a machine that maps thought processes.   
  
And Spock is fine, and the Vulcans they bring down are fine.   
  
And Jim is—  
  
Not.   
  
And he doesn't know how to block the invasions, and Bones says he's got a new sensitivity to it like an allergy. And Spock could—help him. Could teach him how to block it, to cope with it, but he doesn't—want to ask.   
  
So they deal. Cope. And then they go to New Vulcan because it's Spock's year.  
  
And then Spock is just  _there_. All the time. Jim's hyperaware of every thought that passes from Spock's mind and it's an assault, unending, stupid and he can't settle his own thoughts and he's going to  _kill_  someone. Spock.   
  
And he fucks hard because at least when he's drowning in sensation he's getting off, but then it goes back and he's going to wake up one morning with his brain dribbled out his ear and not in a good way.  
  
And he starts fighting back, numbers because they're what come from him—numbers that barely make  _sense_.   
  
And it starts working.   
  
"You're doing this on purpose," he accuses after four days of it.   
  
"Yes."   
  
His mom once said he was the fucking horse that couldn't be made to drink. Spock's figured it out.   
  
They don't talk about it after that, but Jim handles telepathic civilizations better. Not perfectly. Better.  
  
Doesn't think about it.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **trienne_hovus **: How *does* Jim keep Sam and Aurelan from going to Deneva?****

"I got—"   
  
"Don't."   
  
"Jim, it's great money and Deneva's not a bad planet—"   
  
"Sam, I am asking you—I am  _begging_  you—"  
  
"Jim, I don't—"  
  
"Sam, I've never asked you for anything—"  
  
"I just want a—"  
  
"You die. You die, and Pete is the only one who survives."   
  
"I—"  
  
"These things, they come out of—these neural parasites, they look like sting rays and they kill people with any kind of telepathy—Spock was bad and—fuck, where did they come from?"  
  
"Jim…."  
  
"Ingraham B. Eight months after no one has word from you Aurie manages to get around the block of the communications. Aurie dies on my ship and Sam is—But the thing is, the other two die before hand—Pete is the only one who lived but I don't know what happened to Jules and Xander. You need to—"  
  
"Jim."   
  
"2266, Sam. You like Earth Outpost II. Pass it up."   
  
 _"Jim."_  
  
"What?"  
  
"Okay."  
  
"Okay?"  
  
"Yeah. I don't—even want to know where the fuck you're getting this but—okay. I'll tell them no, and tell them to watch out for—neural parasites that look like sting rays."   
  
"Sam—"  
  
"Yeah, Jimmy. Me too."


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **trienne_hovus** : How do we *know* Elder Spock can't return to his 'verse, when all he needs is a singularity and some calculations - calculations Nero managed to solve while on a prison planet? What if he tries? What if he succeeds?

Perhaps he could go back—but he is sure that he never will.   
  
He has done the calculations. The math would work. He does not want to make the attempt.   
  
He brought this on them.  _He_  wroth this. Nero followed him. Spock failed, and Vulcan was destroyed.  
  
It is his responsibility to do all in his power to  _fix_  it.   
  
He gets married, has children.   
  
Works with his father, who knows him and listens, who calls him cousin and watches him, uncertain as ever as to how best deal with Spock—a Spock who is older, who is more  _human_  from years of exposure to Jim.   
  
He is enduring. Living. Making amends.   
  
He could go back.   
  
But to what?


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **trienne_hovus** : A glimpse of Enterprise life from the p.o.v. of its Vulcan crew members. Do they assimilate, or do they band together to keep their Vulcanness intact?  
>  **twig_tea** ohmygod seconding SO HARD

The reason for being on the  _Enterprise_  varies. The logic is always unimpeachable: it is logical to serve on the ship to which one was originally assigned; it is logical to serve on the ship which defeated Nero if one expects to defeat similar people &c.   
  
But it is difficult to maintain Vulcan when Vulcan no longer exists. Commander Spock sets aside a room and they bring small items from the planet. Rocks. Files. It seems uncharacteristically sentimental, and yet they are all conscious of the need to remember Vulcan; to preserve what is lost.   
  
There are varying opinions on Commander Spock. There are those who remember him as a child. But there is a consensus that he is not entirely Vulcan in all of his behaviors. That at times he is very Human.   
  
The Humans would seem to disagree: identify him as Vulcan. He straddles the line. It is logical to respect that.   
  
It is illogical to allow a matter of genetics to interfere with the workings of a space ship.   
  
If not for Spock, the Vulcan Elders would be dead. Their culture would be fragmented and lost. They would never regain even a shadow of what they were: Spock is to be admired.   
  
Those who disagree are quietly encouraged to transfer.   
  
The captain never inquires, though he notices the pattern.   
  
The Humans do not seem to be patronizing them. It is a relief: Humans have a disgruntling tendancy to coddle the grieving.   
  
Perhaps it is the captain who sets the tone: that is logical. But senior staff expect all crewmembers to function at maximum capacity without excuse.   
  
McCoy is a demanding CMO. Mr. Scott is both a taxing CEO and CSecO. Spock does not tolerate any slackness from any of the science officers, and Kirk does not tolerate it on his helm.   
  
There are slips: Humans are like that. All species make mistakes: to the Vulcans the matter of tense is paramount: Vulcan  _was_ , New Vulcan  _is_. But to other species such mastery is not second nature.   
  
There is no malice.   
  
Spock and Captain Kirk work perfectly together. It is illogical to pry into their private affairs and irrelevant. They are generally acknowledged to be the finest captain and XO in the fleet: the Vulcans on board have much to be proud of in Spock, for his accomplishments reflect well upon them.   
  
If Spock finds it ironic that he is representative of a culture which so long refused to embrace him now that the planet is gone, he gives no indication.   
  
They all perform admirably.


	20. And Now We Have Joanna McCoy's Dad!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **aprilleigh24** : McCoy - the best and worst recruiter Starfleet ever had.
> 
> He's at Jo's school, doing the 'this is what I do at my job' thing from the POV of the incredulous shlub that has to follow. (What’s the 23rd century equivalent to a midlevel manager of a regional branch of a paper company?)

He moved to the town and kind of heard. Joanna McCoy's the spitfire of their class, she's always up to something and her mother's a lawyer for Crane, Poole and Schmidt.   
  
Nice woman, Jocelyn Deveraux. Kind of terrifying.   
  
But she can't make it, and there's some buzz because apparently her father might be able to make it.   
  
"Well, I haven't seen McCoy in years," David Albright, Harry Albright's dad, says. "He's been in Starfleet. Mean sonovabitch. But a good doctor."   
  
"You didn't go to school with him," Bobby Chen snorts. The guy walks in, in his Starfleet uniform, sliding his comm into his back pocket and looking harried. He grins, slightly at Jo, and she punches the air in victory.   
  
The dads go. Ted's a supervisor at the hospital's kitchen.   
  
He goes, can tell the kids are bored, but the kids have been bored the whole time—nothing really interesting in this town. He finishes up, takes a few question about gross hospital food (which is a myth that's been going on for centuries, and it's a lie, because he works hard to make sure it's not shit. It's hard though…hospital chefs are fucking assholes).   
  
"And now we have Jo McCoy's dad, Dr. McCoy."   
  
McCoy looks at all the children, and Jo McCoy has narrowed her eyes at him. If Ted squints he thinks she's mouthing ' _Be NICE, Daddy_.'   
  
"So. How many of you wanna go into space?" McCoy asks. All the kids shoot up their hands.   
  
"Let me tell you about goin' to space. Leavin aside how many ways you can die"—his tone implies there are a lot of them—"let's talk about gettin' on a ship.   
  
"You get out there, in the black, with about 800 people. You get a captain that's crazy as shit and an XO who's—"  
  
The teacher clears his throat delicately. McCoy snorts.   
  
"Yeah. Then you run around on planets no one's ever been on before, and crazy people on them try to kill you. Some days you're reliving Ancient Greece, there was that one crazy bas—moron—on that planet who thought he was stuck in like, 17th century France. There was the guy with a dinosaur head with insect eyes who tried to kill Jim, and the freaking telepathic morons who took an ensign. Some days you get stuck on a black hole's well rim and a crazy Scotsman with an alcohol problem has to practically break the ship to get out of it.  
  
"You've got a guy who knows how to fence and at one point thought he was a freaking musketeer and mirror freakin' universes."  
  
Ted wrenches his fascinated gaze from McCoy to look at the kids. Jo McCoy is beaming broadly the way kids do when their parents make them proud. The other kids are hanging on his every word, kind of horrified and kind of excited and totally enthralled.   
  
"You gotta make it all up as you go along and pray that the people you're working with aren't as crazy as they seem or that they're _crazier_  than they seem."   
  
He broods on this. "Got any questions?"   
  
"Is it true that Commander Spock saved the Vulcan elders?"   
  
"Yeah."   
  
"Is it true that he didn't come on until right before you guys left?"  
  
"That's 'cause he's a drama queen," McCoy informs them.   
  
"Is it true that Captain Kirk has allergies?"   
  
"To every freaking thing in the known  _universe_."   
  
"Are you guys all friends."   
  
McCoy looks at the kid, who shrinks down in his chair. "We don't wanna kill each other. Most days. Well. We don't  _actually_  kill each other, so it counts."   
  
"Does Captain Kirk have a girlfriend?" one of the girls in the front row asks.   
  
McCoy finds that hilarious. "No. God. No."   
  
"A boyfriend?" one of the boys asks.   
  
"Nope."   
  
"He's single?" the first girl asks.  
  
"Aren't you kinda young to wanna hit on Jim?" McCoy demands. "Where the hell's your father?"   
  
One of the guys shrinks down in his chair.   
  
"Daddy, tell them about the tribbles," Jo McCoy instructs.   
  
"Okay, first thing you gotta know… never trust anyone you meet in a bar."   
  
The story is hilarious and horrifying and McCoy seems completely annoyed by the whole thing, and Ted's pretty sure that even though McCoy acts like it's awful, all the kids are going to sign up for Starfleet.   
  
Well. At least no one will remember his presentation.


	21. The First Official Meeting of the Kirk Support Group (KSG)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Anonymous** : Jim tested out of a couple of years worth of Starfleet. What was his first official day in classes like and how were his teachers coping at the end of it?  
>  **siriuslyinluv2** : Yes! this!! Seconded like woah.

Professor Richard Jordan slouches down in the coffee house and looks at his colleagues.   
  
"Kirk?" he asks.   
  
"Kirk," they agree.   
  
"Look," Guber says, leaning forward. Even her hair looks deflated. "I know he's tested out. I saw the data, we all did. You can't deny that he's completed the requisite course work. I just want to know why no one thought to look at the  _psych_  profiles."   
  
"Because it's Spock and  _Pike_ ," Garrison snorts, drinking his Irish coffee. "Pike' s got his crusade and Kirk is  _right_  up his alley, forget that he's George Kirk's kid—"  
  
"I  _wish_  you could see George in him!" McLachlan bursts out. "It's all Winona! She wasn't a bad student—at least she got quiet when she thought you were talking out your ass."   
  
"George didn't." Richard remembers him. George Kirk was deceptive, but he was a hardass. He liked George.   
  
"No, but he was  _polite_ ," Guber points out, smiling as Kent slides into the booth beside her. "Kirk?"  
  
"Kirk."   
  
"Look, it might have been a bad day," Turner says. "He could have been…nervous because it's his first day."   
  
"Did he  _seem_  nervous?" Kent demands. "Because I gotta tell you, it's fucking unnerving to teach about genocide in front of a kid who  _survived_  one. And is willing to talk about it. How do you talk about Tarsus to the kid who triggered the rescue?"   
  
"Carefully," Guber says wryly. McLachlan toasts to that.   
  
"Forget that, I had him for battle theory," Garrison snorts.  
  
"How'd that go?" Turner asks, smiling at the waitress who brings her her beer.  
  
"He's already read the papers." Garrison eyes his coffee morosely.   
  
"All of them?" McLachlan asks.   
  
"All of my course material. He's read it all."   
  
"Well, he can't—" Richard begins and Garrison shakes his head.   
  
"Oh, yes. He can remember it. Well enough to quote it back at me."   
  
"Well—"  
  
"Are we talking about Kirk?" Dutton asks as she settles at the end of the booth. "You're all drinking, we must be."  
  
"You had him for math, didn't you?"   
  
"The physics of space warfare," Dutton corrects.   
  
They all wait. She looks at them. "What?"  
  
"Was it awful?" Guber demands.   
  
"Didn't he talk over you the whole time?" Turner asks.  
  
"Did he correct you?" Garrison looks bitter.  
  
"Didn't he just  _watch_  you like he thinks you're full of it?" Richard wants to know.  
  
"Didn't he derail you into ethics instead of facts?" McLachlan's almost shouting in frustration.  
  
"…No. He's probably the best student I've ever had," Dutton disagrees, laughing at them all. "Engaged, bright, enthusiastic. I quite like him."   
  
They stare at her in horror and she laughs again.   
  
"The thing is," Turner says after a silence. "I don't think he's trying to be difficult."   
  
"Maybe it's the students. By the time we get them they've been beaten into submission by intro-level professors," Garrison agrees, shrugging his massive shoulders philosophically.   
  
"Maybe he'll raise the bar in terms of conversation in the classroom," Guber agrees, nodding. The entire tone of the conversation changes to hopeful.   
  
Delusional, but hopeful.   
  
The next day a different group of professors has the exact same conversation. And on and on it goes.   
  
They call it the "Kirk Support Group" or "KSG." By the end of the semester they have seventeen administrators.   
  
"What's going on here?" Chris Pike asks after finals, where they all made the mistake of putting giving oral as well as written. "Sharing war stories?"  
  
"I blame you," Garrison snarls. "You wished him on us."   
  
"Jimmy giving you trouble?" Pike asks like he's shocked to hear it. "Well. He gives you any trouble, you talk to Spock. He's his advisor."  
  
And then he chuckles and toasts them with his coffee and walks out.   
  
"I never liked him," Richard groans, and then stares at the fifty page paper in front of him, complete with footnotes.


	22. Warzone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **storm_of_roses** : There has not been nearly enough angst. Pavel beams down (god knows why) and something happens. ...that probably should be more specific.

They're all looking forward to coming back to Orcha II. There had been two civilizations—Haré and the Oxiee. They'd ended up staying with the Oxiee, and the people had been happy and friendly and entirely welcoming.   
  
They'd played soccer with the kids and been guests at the palace—pampered and welcomed.   
  
Pavel had loved it, and Kirk had been running around with the kids with McCoy, trying out hoverboards and Hikaru had fenced delightedly with some of the guards—it was like a vacation planet, and when they got the order to bring an ambassador to the planet they'd been happy to.   
  
And at first he doesn't get it.   
  
Thinks maybe some weirdly sickly-sweet crop came in, and that it's a grey day and that the sun is casting an orange glow.   
  
But then Kirk walks across his field of vision and his jaw is set in  _that_  way, and Spock has a quiet set to his shoulders that reminds Pavel of when he came back from Vulcan and then he doesn't want to look.   
  
He just—he doesn't  _want_  to see what he already knows is there.   
  
At first it just looks like it's been bombed. It's just rubble—so so much rubble everywhere.   
  
And then as he walks around, taking readings with his tricorder and not listening to what Kirk and McCoy are saying to each other because he doesn't think he'll be able to handle it.   
  
Starfleet tells them not to get attached: that they can't interfere in civil wars unless specifically asked; shoot second…but the thing is, he knew them.   
  
Ate their cooking, laughed at their jokes—he has a blanket on his bed that Iguo made him with her kids handprints on it.   
  
His feet stop, and he can feel it, ready to throw up, but he doesn't. Because he's a Starfleet officer. He takes readings, writes a report about the civil war that left the planet devastated.   
  
He sits on the bed, wraps himself up in the blanket, and tries very hard to remember that it's better to have loved and lost then not at all. That it's not wrong to get close to the people they encounter.


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **storm_of_roses** : Spock Prime travels across the 'verse in a ship of his own design, kicking ass and taking names. Bonus points if it's Five Times Spock Ran Into a Kirk While Working. Because really, he wouldn't be able to stand staying on the colony all the time.

**1.**  
He never met Winona Kirk. By reputation she was a vibrant, demanding woman who liked to laugh and adored her family.   
  
He sees very little of that in the woman helping to do the wiring as New Vulcan is established.   
  
She is brusque and demanding, swears and stares men down.   
  
He has seen four men cry by virtue of that look alone.   
  
However, when he is standing on an overhang she comes up beside him and hands him tea which someone must have provided her.   
  
"I hate this stuff," she says, not looking at him, "and you need a drink."   
  
He accepts it and opens his mouth to thank her, but she has moved away, shoving hair away from her face. There is a moment, however, when she pulls up a small communication device and looks down at the message on it and her face breaks into a smile.   
  
It is brief, and perhaps wry, but very real, and Spock thinks,  _Jim_.  
  
 **2.**  
Sam Kirk is a very stubborn man. He is also not so unlike his brother as he would have the world think.  
  
This universe's Sam is tall and lanky—resembles his mother more closely then he resembles Jim. Spock has vague memories of the corpse on Deneva—it had been Jim with a mustache and gray hair, as he recalls.   
  
"Sex pollen," Sam Kirk repeats, raising his eyebrows. "In the  _air_. Which you all inhal—oh fucking no."   
  
He jumps backwards from the grasping hand of an ambassador whose eyes have gone lust crazed.   
  
"Run!" he tells Spock, grasping his hand and tugging Spock along behind him, slamming the door shut.   
  
"Sex pollen," Spock says.   
  
"Dude, you can analyze the pollen," Sam tells him. "But I? I'm the one who's going to have to look at semen samples. Don't even talk to me."   
  
 **3.**  
Seven years later he runs into Sam Kirk at a conference he's attending. He finds he is enjoying academia—the presence of the Narada has impacted the technology of this timeline in ways that make it far beyond his own; not quite technologically at the place where he left, but they are getting close. It is remarkable.  
  
Sam takes him out to coffee, which Spock allows because he is curious.  
  
"Okay," Sam says. "But seriously—I just…for reasons I  _can't_  (and totally won't) go into? I need to know if it's possible for male Vulcans to get pregnant."   
  
"No," Spock says, and then has a sneaking suspicion that he knows exactly where this is coming from.  
  
Part of him wants to contact Jim and laugh at him. Another part of him aches because  _he_  is not the one Jim is concerned about. Not this him, anyway.   
  
"You're positive. Not even, say, if they're only a percentage Vulcan?"  
  
"Hypothetically speaking, of course," Spock begins.  
  
"Of course," Sam agrees, drinking his coffee wryly.   
  
"No. It is not biologically possible."   
  
"Well thank fuck for small miracles."   
  
"Indeed."  
  
 **4.**  
He knew they would be here.   
  
They have attempted to avoid each other, but they cannot. They look well together; he wonders if anyone ever said that about him and Jim—that they  _looked_  well together. They must have.   
  
Still.   
  
They cross the room to speak with him, and he leaves his new wife to speak to them, and there are suddenly no words.   
  
Just a moment of stillness as the Federation celebrates the establishment of New Vulcan.   
  
 **5.**  
"Do you know how to drive this?"  
  
"How hard can it be?"  
  
"It—may surprise you, it is very intuitive to—"  
  
"You talk a lot for a Vulcan. That 'cause you're only half?"   
  
"I—"  
  
"You're Spock, is what you are. Incoming meteor, you want to shoot it?"   
  
"I'm afraid—"  
  
"We're in a small contained ship on our way to meet up with the  _Enterprise_  because apparently I made an impression on the Scot and  _you_  have some expertise I didn't listen to. But you're still Spock."  
  
"Did Jim—?"  
  
"No. Jim doesn't say three words that mean anything for all he talks."   
  
"I had noticed that about this—"  
  
"How'd he die?"  
  
"Well."   
  
"Dead's dead."  
  
"Avalanche. He was well over one hundred."   
  
"…Well. That's good, at least."   
  
"Indeed."


	24. T'Pon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Anonymous** : Hey, I remember how in one of your stories Nyota said how if Jim got killed they'd have to put T'Pon in charge because she would be the only one who would keep her head and not commit genocide for revenge. I'd like to hear her thoughts on the matter.

She is the highest ranked Vulcan after Commander Spock. 

She started out in sickbay as a nurse, but she is also a physicist, and is the second-ranking Science Officer. 

The Vulcan she knew, loved, lost, instilled her with many values; with the logic to handle a situation without being compromised. 

She would abide by Starfleet Regulations. 

She would show mercy where none was shown her people. 

It is illogical that many should suffer for the actions of a government. Of a single entity. 

And yet it will never come to that. 

The only person who has ever riled Commander Spock is Captain Kirk, and in those circumstances she herself, being fully Vulcan, does not know with certainty that she would not have broken in the same way. 

She does not think that that was Human. 

She believes it to be bloodlust—the old anger of their people which the teachings of Surak protect them from, but which, in times of tragedy, in times of impossible emotional strain, must shatter like glass enduring forced oscillation resonance.

She would not genocide a planet for the captain. 

But the only time that would come into question would be if Commander Spock were removed from duty or dead: she has every faith that he could perform admirably. 

After all, with the variable of Captain Kirk gone as an incitement to rage, it is only logical that there would be none.


	25. Mascochism: A Study by Chris Pike

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **allie_meril** : Pike asks Number One questions about her life. She answers, but not in ways he expected.

They do the running and getting a coffee thing (or juice, whatever) for a month or so before he realizes that she now knows everything about his family. She knows about John and Dave and his dad's depression (which…he doesn't, as a rule, talk about).   
  
So one night, over Chinese, he asks her. Or tries.   
  
Not so much with the "succeeding."   
  
"So… your parents alive?"   
  
"I believe so."  
  
"You have siblings?"  
  
"Possibly."   
  
"…You don't…know?"  
  
"I would have no way of accessing that information."   
  
"You can't just—" he breaks off. Okay, maybe she…doesn't want to talk about it? And is being subtle? Or…not. It's Number One.  
  
"Okay…what about…what was Ilyria like?"   
  
"Strict."   
  
"…Strict?"   
  
"The education system was very much like that on Vulcan: failure was not an option."   
  
"…No, I mean… what was the climate like?"  
  
"I do not know. Varied, I imagine. It was roughly the same distance from its sun as Earth is."   
  
"You never went outside?"  
  
"I was in the academic track."   
  
"You were tracked."   
  
"Am I speaking unclearly?"   
  
"It—never mind. So… you were…inside. All the time. Where'd you learn to dance?"   
  
"An instructor was of the philosophy that dance kept the mind mathematically-inclined but provided adequate physical activity."   
  
"…Were you…happy?"  
  
She looks at him, and Chris waits for some weird sentence, some…stupid thing like asking him to define "happy" because she  _does_ shit like that.   
  
"Yes."   
  
"Yeah?"   
  
She nods, and he grins.   
  
That's the first time he ever thinks about kissing her.


	26. Kevin Riley

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **jitkajaylor **: Randomness from TOS ... what about Kevin Riley? Is he on the Enterprise? What does he think about Captain Kirk? Does Kirk talk to him or avoid the whole Tarsus thing?****

Kevin Riley was there when Kodos gave the speech. He remembers the kid beside Kodos, with bright blue eyes and hands in pockets.   
  
 _James T. Kirk_  
  
His dad disappeared—his dad was  _killed_. He had a limp—couldn't work as hard.   
  
He was nine at the time, Kirk was thirteen.   
  
He went to Starfleet because—it can't happen again, you know? It just…it just  _can't_. He's in operations—he's…navigation? Engineer, whatever, he's good at it. Machines do what you tell them and don't fucking decide to kill everyone.   
  
Don't—  
  
He went home to his grandmother who made him a scrapbook of what happened. There's this image—Winona Kirk with her phaser in hand. She's looking at something out of frame.   
  
He wrote her once—wrote to say "thank you." She didn't write back.   
  
Once he gets to Starfleet he hears she's kind of a bitch.   
  
He doesn't care.  _She_  came for them.   
  
There's this other shot—it's of James T. Kirk and G. Samuel Kirk. They're just…sitting in the middle of a transporter. James is curled against him, staring vacantly, and Samuel is holding onto him. That image got reused a lot—over and over and over again, but there's something… it's the look in James' eyes. It's that vacant 'I can't even deal with this' look.   
  
Kevin  _knows_  that look because he woke up and saw it in the mirror for years.   
  
His grandmother says he should try to forgive, but how do you even do that? You just—you have to stop it from happening again.   
  
When the  _Enterprise_  comes back to port for its review after its first five years he puts his name in the queue of applications.   
  
Kirk accepts him and scribbles in barely-legible handwriting, "Mom says you're welcome."   
  
He's not sure how he feels about Kirk. He knows, from the stuff that came  _After_ , that Kirk did some sabotage, that he was against it, that he was a guest and a kid and not responsible but Kevin has this image of him there. Has this image of Kirk standing beside Kodos.   
  
But the captain plays things cool—doesn't seem to let it affect him, the memory of it. He's a good guy—he takes care of them as best he can.   
  
But— _but_.   
  
The thing that makes Kevin finally relax? Is the day that they come back from an away mission and Kirk snaps,   
  
"Everyone here?"  
  
And when Mr. Scott says, "Aye, all present and accounted for with nary a scratch, capt'n," there's this moment. This moment where Kirk glances around at all of them, panting and still checking because that was  _close_ , and he just looks so fiercely relieved. Like he can't stand to have any of them die.   
  
Like none of them are going to get sacrificed so the others can live.


	27. Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Anonymous** : Delurking because I love this series to death to ask either why Spock never told Jim about T'Pring or what Spock, who T'Pring was sure was asexual, sees in Kirk?

At first he does not mention T'Pring because he does not think to.   
  
She is of an old life on Vulcan: a relic of a world he turned his back on with four words.   
  
He will return to Vulcan when pon farr descends. Biology will drive him to her, but there are years yet, when he first finds Jim, before that becomes a reality.   
  
And in the long tradition of the males of his species, he does not think of it.   
  
Jim is unlike anything he expected: unlike anything he knew to expect.   
  
Even through his own parents' story as told by his mother, there was the catalyst of his grandparents' death.   
  
Jim is merely baffling and intriguing. And Spock is fascinated by him. Jim is a contradiction, does not do what is expected of him. He rages against everything without prejudice: he is exhausting and energizing simultaneously. Before Spock is even conscious of desire for him, he is incapable of looking away.   
  
Suddenly he is not merely waking up and living the same day over and over, he is waking up at odd hours because Jim keeps odd hours; frequenting disreputable places and finding himself in bar fights.   
  
And he is, for the first time in his life,  _challenged_.   
  
Because T'Pring was never a challenge; was a fact, passive in his life.   
  
#  
  
Then she is dead, and he does not have time to think of it—she has not been his concern for seven years.   
  
And then she is accounted for as dead, and he mourns her, but he mourns for all of them. The grief of her death pales in comparison to the loss of Mother.   
  
And he does not know, if she had survived, if he would have joined her on the New Colony. It occurs briefly as he is considering staying, that he would have to take a wife in order to create a family unit to benefit society, but in abstract. His life on Vulcan has always been that: in abstract. The details evade him entirely. They have always done so.   
  
And then he is on the  _Enterprise_  and must contend with that and Jim, and has no time to think on her.   
  
#  
  
Jim does not ask. He does not offer.   
  
Jim has brushed against her in his mind, has circled the memory curiously and dismissed it because she is uninteresting.   
  
And Spock finds the memory of her from the Ambassador in Jim's mind.   
  
She would have chosen Stonn. He would have killed Jim if not for McCoy.   
  
He regrets her death as both a part of the Vulcan Genocide and as a part of his childhood lost. But he does not regret that he will not experience that.   
  
Does not regret that he bonds to Jim far before his counterpart managed it.   
  
Does not regret that when he does endure pon farr, far sooner than any of them had anticipated, it is with Jim, who has never agreed to be anything less than fascinating.


	28. Lenore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **jitkajaylor** : Okay, I'm kinda weird sometimes, yes. I've been circling the fandom, yet no one seems to have really dealt with the fall-out from the Romulan/Reman side of the equation. Hell, do they even know Nero was doing crazy shit? What about the Klingons he blew out of the sky? The Vulcans have had a rough time of it, sure, but Federation back-lash might be harsh even though Nero specifically detached himself from the Empire. Of course, this might be a whole lot longer than a quick drabble, but you think you might be up to something?
> 
> And what about Lenore? (Yeah, I have a thing for the whole Tarsus fuck-up).
> 
> Gah, such a geek.
> 
> ~JJ~

Lenore was born in 2247. The genocide on Tarsus IV occurred in 2246, a year earlier.

* * *

She was a cell cluster in her mother's uterus when he was killed.   
  
Her mother didn't even know she was pregnant until she'd been relocated by Starfleet.  
  
She's born Lenore Karidian, daughter of Helen Karidian, a young widow on Vender VII. Tarsus is something for the history books, a strange aberration that no one seems to have gotten to the bottom of.   
  
It's messy, and they learn about it in high school because that is when people learn of genocides and promise that the past will never repeat itself.   
  
She becomes an actress: loves Shakespeare because he's funny, because he's making fun and being such a  _shit_  and she loves seeing an audience get it.   
  
She performs all over the quadrant; Lenore Karidian is a headliner. She performs for Captain Kirk and his crew, once. He grins and laughs at Hamlet and she can't help but grin at him from the wings, because he gets it. It's nice that someone who everyone thinks so highly of gets Bill. It means he's smarter than they all think.   
  
He shakes her hand and tells her he was very sorry to see her die as Ophelia, but that she did it very nicely, and made a very pretty corpse. She asks him if he's into necrophilia in mock-scandalized tones and he laughs again.   
  
She never knows who her father is, but what does it matter? After all, he probably wasn't very important; her mother never mentioned him at all, but never seemed particularly lonely for him.


	29. Map of Stupid Planets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Anonymous** I would like to know what happened to make Sulu start keeping track of Planets That Hate The Captain. Like...which planet started the trend and what happened on it if that makes sense...

So the first planet that he maps out isn't the first planet that takes an irrational dislike to Kirk, okay? It's that there are seven in a row.   
  
By the sixth (the one that doesn't like that he speaks for his women) they're all just reeling because it's unbelievable: it's  _so_  clearly aimed at Kirk.   
  
But Kirk has to be the one to speak first because he's the  _captain_. They can't just let Spock do the job because the last six planets hate Kirk.   
  
And that's weird, right?   
  
Because  _Spock_  is the one whose ears point and whose eyebrows go up at that angle, and he's the one who doesn't smile and only shakes hands when forced. Spock is just  _different_  no matter what planet they land on.   
  
And Kirk, you'd figure, right, with the charm and the fact that he's  _hot_  that they'd  _like_  him. Or at least trust him.   
  
But they never do. Or at least, not all of them.   
  
And if he was manwhorey then it'd be one thing. But he's not.   
  
See, the first planet they didn't like that he had blue eyes. Apparently a tyrant had had blue eyes adn they'd been a little primitive but it was…you know, that was sort of reasonable.   
  
The second planet took offense to they don't even  _know_  what. There was something about a word he used, but that's bull because all he said was, "My name is James T. Kirk, captain of the Starship  _Enterprise_ —" and then came the arrows. Yeah.   
  
On the third planet they didn't like the way he, specifically  _he_  beamed down.   
  
The fourth planet seemed fine, until they realized that the captain wasn't at the banquet and he was in a chair with needles in his brain, whimpering. They were a little pissed off about that.   
  
On the fifth planet the fact he's unmarried seems to cause a problem.   
  
The sixth planet didn't like that he spoke before the women. Which was just weird, because  _their leader_  was male. And he spoke before his women. So that's where they figure it's pretty arbitrary and complete bullshit.   
  
And so they're all angry and tired and Spock's in conferences with Admiral Pike about the diplomatic corps and Number One talks to Jim. And Hikaru is looking at the map of the galaxy as he's doing star charts and he remembers those maps that his teacher had when he was in third grade, where they all stuck pins in the places they'd been.   
  
And so he starts putting pins in the map—not… he starts programming pins into the map. Of the planets that just  _hate_  the captain for no good reason. It makes him feel…like somehow he's in control of it? Like if he can map them, he'll remember; they'll find a pattern, they'll be able to…   
  
He doesn't know. It doesn't work. They never find the pattern.


	30. Chapter 30

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **storm_of_roses** : 5 things Nyota will never understand about Jim Kirk. (friendship fic, mayhaps?)

**1.**  
When she gets the whole story, she wants to know why it took him so long to make a move on Spock.   
  
Because she was convinced they were sleeping together the  _first time_  she ever saw them together. She still can't wrap her head around it.   
  
"Seriously, months?" she asks.   
  
Jim shrugs and spreads his hands. "I wanted it to be special," he says earnestly.   
  
Which is a lie. Such a lie.   
  
"I slept with Scotty the first night."   
  
"And everyone calls me a slut," Kirk snorts.   
  
"That's because we all remember the academy," she informs him, pointing.   
  
He shrugs a shoulder. "Honestly? Who looks at Spock and thinks that they have a shot?"   
  
And that's…kind of sweet.   
  
Stupid, but…sweet.  
  
 **2.**  
He's awful at poker. No, really, he is.   
  
No, she doesn't get it either, because she once saw him lie to Romulans and even  _she_  believed him.  
  
 **3.**  
His relationship with his mother.  
  
Granted, her family is big and enveloping and they love each other without reservation, but she has  _no idea_  what to make of the fact that they have a text-based relationship which seems to be based on late 20th/early 21st century pop sci-fi culture.   
  
And that instead of sending things like "I'm fine, I'm alive, this is what happened" he sends her things like "So…if John Henry actually went to the future, what was the point of that?" on days he almost dies.   
  
She…doesn't get it. At all.   
  
 **4.**  
She doesn't know why sometimes he seems more willing to make himself miserable about Spock than just…talking about it.   
  
Because Jim shoves and yells and pushes hard when it comes to  _everyone_  else. But he won't when it comes to himself. He's kind of willing to be miserable and accept that somehow he's at fault.   
  
And it's not like it happens a lot, or like Jim is some battered spouse in a PSA. No, they're…they're really good together. It's just that when they go bad they go really bad and it sort of festers.   
  
So she ends up every so often sitting down across from Spock and asking what the fuck his problem is: why is Jim unhappy?   
  
And you'd think that them being bonded and having access to each other's brains would make things like this not happen. But they do.   
  
And she has no idea how  _she_  got to be the yenta of the ship.   
  
 **5.**  
How he makes those decisions.   
  
You know, the…the ones that end up with people dead. Not as many as it could be, but…people die. And he gives the call, makes it over the advice of Spock and the arguments of McCoy.   
  
And the thing is, you'd expect it to affect him: shatter him maybe. He gives eulogies and adds personal touches, leaves the podium open with a bar in the back so that off-duty officers can get some liquid courage before they cry in public. He's  _good_  at it, confronting death.   
  
She just doesn't know  _how_.


	31. Mustang Sally

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **storm_of_roses** : Winona and Tiberius, any situation. Maybe some family dinner? There isn't nearly enough Tiberius fic. (Admittedly, he's a somewhat minor character.)

The thing is, Winona Bunting is a fucking  _shit_  and the whole town knows it.   
  
Except George can't seem to extract himself. It's like she's sucked him in.   
  
And so when George comes over to him and says very seriously, "Pop, it's her birthday Saturday and her dad's got nothin' planned, so can she come over?" what's a father going to do? Say "No, 'cause she's a demon-child and might light the house on fire"? No. You give the kid what he wants because you only turn six once and he wants to do something nice for his friend, who maybe doesn't get enough nice stuff done for her. Annie's already nodding her approval from the other room, which means there'll be cake and ice cream. Good woman: he married well.  
  
Thing is, Jim Bunting's a nice enough guy, he really is. He's just not equipped to raise this girl on his own and ever since Jennifer ran out on him he's been…well, giving Winona her head.   
  
Not that Tiberius can blame him: Winona's a handful.   
  
Apparently she cut off all of Becky Garland's hair last week in kindergarten. Got Becky's mom right pissed—went over to yell at Jim, who shrugged and said it was Mrs. King's responsibility to mind her own fucking classroom, and maybe if Becky hadn't been so fucking annoying about her hair Winona would have left it alone.   
  
Which is… Yeah.   
  
But anyway. George is maybe the one good influence over Winona Bunting and Tiberius loves his son and he's trying to do the right thing, here, so.   
  
So now he's got Winona Kirk in his house. And she just fixed his replicator.   
  
"You good with tools?" he asks her because what do you  _say_  to the six year old who does shit like that?   
  
"Machines," she replies and shrugs, blond hair ratty and tangled but her face smiling. She's a pretty little girl, under the dirt. George beams.   
  
"Well, you know what?" he says, taking her hand and leading her out into the second barn—the one they just store shit in. "I got this old mustang here. Antique reissue of a really old car, but I just ain't got the time and I was never good with cars. Let's say here that if you can fix it and get her running— _without_  stealing any of the parts?—you can have her."   
  
"For my own?" she asks, looking at George and it makes him  _ache_  a little bit. 'Cause no kid should…no kid that young should doubt a present.   
  
"For your own."   
  
And it works twofold, 'cause for years after that he's always got a pretty good idea where Winona and George are when they can't be found for shit, and she never gives him lip.   
  
Well. Doesn't give him a lot—and really, that's better than the whole fucking world manages.   
  
Well. Until George dies.   
  
And then… well. Like father like daughter. Winona goes just like Jim did: can't quite cope. But she tries. Fuck, does she try.  
  
And it makes him ache, just like it did when she was six.


	32. Chapter 32

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **storm_of_roses** : Five times Winona said "I love you", and one time she didn't have to say anything at all.

**1.**  
Jim Bunting never quite…got together after Jenny left. He tried, but he just…he can't.   
  
And he's fucking Winona up. He knows he is, he can see it, and Tiberius Kirk keeps on looking at him like Jim's causing him physical pain but—he's like a deer in the headlights: see sit coming but can't move for fuck.   
  
And then one day he looks at her and she's grown up to be so  _pretty_ , so fucking competent in spite of him.   
  
She's not wearing white, but she is in a dress and she's just… "I'm real sorry," he says, 'cause it's got to be said. 'Cause he tells her he loves her 'till he's blue in the face and she never says it back, but this is the thing he's gotta say to her. Before she goes up into the sky.  
  
"I love you," she replies.   
  
Fuck he loves this girl who grew up in spite of him. His perfect baby girl.   
  
 **2.**  
She holds them like they're prizes: like you've got to earn it.   
  
He's pretty sure she's never going to say it to him again. They're—how are they going to handle this and Starfleet? They're twenty-three, this puts a wrench in  _everything_  and —  
  
And she just rests a hand on her flat stomach and says, "I love you."   
  
Okay. George leans down and kisses her because sometimes he forgets that Winona's the best person he's ever known.  
  
 **3.**  
They're all trying not to look at her, mostly because they're pretty sure that she'll actually kill them, but Doctor Iidry leans over to check the baby's vitals and hears, very quiet, "I love you, Jim."   
  
And the thing is?   
  
 _That's_  what makes her want to cry. That Winona Kirk just lost her husband and she's reassuring her kid that she loves him.   
  
 **4.**  
She comes down the road with a baby and without Daddy, which is strange, and she gives the baby to Grandma Annie and wraps her arms around him. Sam is only four, but he knows she's crying and whispering over and over "I love you, I love you, I love you."   
  
"It's okay, Mommy," he says. "Don't cry. It's okay. Don't cry."   
  
 **5.**  
Frank makes the mistake of believing it when she says she loves him.   
  
It's off-hand, she just says, "Yeah, love you too, babe."   
  
It sustains him through fifteen years of marriage, that one sentence.   
  
Yeah. He knows how sad that is.   
  
 **And the One Time She Didn't Have To Say It**  
They've all got aligning vacations, so Jim and Spock and Winona are at Sam and Aurie's.   
  
Everyone else has gone to bed, but she can hear something from downstairs and she's not gonna sleep, so she comes downstairs. Leans and watches the boys, shoulder to shoulder slouched on the couch like they're teenagers again.   
  
George is laughing and sitting on the mustang's hood, talking into the camera. Sam's got this lost look, but Jim just looks… fascinated.   
  
She wondered what happened to these.   
  
Sam notices her first, looks up and clicks it off, and they look at each other for a second, and then Sam's getting off the couch and hugging her because he's the only one of the three of them who's anything close to sane. She kisses his cheek, smoothes her hands over his cheeks, and then cups Jim's face.   
  
They don't say anything.   
  
Don't have to.


	33. Chapter 33

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Anonymous** : You know that scene where the entire bridge crew are on New Vulcan and being all domestic? I'd a scene or scenes if you want *pout* please *pout* where they're all being very domestic together except from other people's povs. What do you think?

Hope you like this- from George's daddy's POV

* * *

He comes over unannounced, because it’s the only way to get Jimmy not to find an excuse.   
  
“Jimmy? Your grandma sent over a pie,” he calls.   
  
A woman comes to the door, opens the screen and smiles. “Come on in. He’s attempting to manipulate his replicator—”  
  
“Ow,  _fuck!_ ”   
  
“—With limited success,” she continues serenely as there’s a groan and several voices laughing.   
  
The Connor house is warm—the breeze is flowing through; opened all the windows. There’s a smell of…well, something cooking.   
  
“That’s so disgusting,” a kid with a heavy accent decides.   
  
“Put hair on your chest,” a Scotsman replies gleefully, and when Tiberius rounds the corner he can see them. The woman, he remembers now, her name is Uhura. The Scot is Scott, the Russian Chekov, the Asian is Sulu, the older one is McCoy and the nurse is Chapel and the Vulcan’s gotta be Spock.   
  
“I don’t want hair on my chest,” Chapel informs Scott.   
  
“You’re all fired,” Jim decides. Christ, he looks like George. Just— _so much_.   
  
He turns and he’s grinning, loose in the shoulders and Tiberius almost wants to run—turn around and not be here because that’s going to change as soon as Uhura announces him. Jim’s going to go tense and subdued, because Tiberius opens up old wounds just by being here.   
  
“Jim, you’ve got a visitor.”   
  
And there it is: bright blue gaze (brighter than George’s— _bluer_ , more like a jay bird than the sky), lifted chin, stiffened shoulders.   
  
“Pop.”   
  
“Jim.” He lifts up the pie: peace offering though it is. “Your grandmother heard you were in town—” shit, he doesn’t mean that to sound like such a reproach, but it is “—and sent me over with this.”   
  
“Thanks.”  
  
The scene has gone quiet, right until Chekov realizes the Scott is burning something and grabs the pan, burning himself.   
  
He yells and Sulu grabs for ice and Uhura womanfully represses laughter into the back of her hand—Chapel doesn’t manage it as she laughs into the counter.   
  
“Bones, earn your living and look at his hands!” Jim’s saying, laughing and pointing accusingly at McCoy.   
  
“I’m on  _vacation_ ,” McCoy retorts, but takes Chekov’s hand and sighs. “You’re a moron. Didn’t anyone ever teach you not to touch hot shit?”   
  
“They skipped that lesson in baby genius school,” Chekov says earnestly, earning him a cuff upside the head from Sulu.   
  
“I will take this,” Spock materialized in front of him without him noticing. Tiberius nods, and hands it over.   
  
Jimmy’s slanted a glance between them, and then makes the obvious decision to tease Scott.   
  
“Tell him—” Tiberius breaks off. It’s such a—it’s a good scene. This house hasn’t seen that since…since George died. It’s never seen it with Jim. Not really. He’s glad of it. “Tell him the door’s open if he wants to come by. And that…” he shakes his head, not sure what he wants to say.  _I’m sorry for not interfering_ ;  _I’m sorry for being to wrapped up in my own grief_ ;  _I’m sorry for being so mad at your mama_ ;  _I want you to be happy, honest to God, Jimmy, I do_.   
  
“I will inform him,” Spock says, and walks Tiberius back out. There’s a shout of laughter and a yelp; a regenerator whirring. The happy cadence of a bantered conversation.   
  
“You keep him safe,” he says, even though it’s not his right. He means—he means it as an order.   
  
“I do,” Spock agrees.   
  
Well. Okay then.   
  
He walks down the lane: walks slow these days.


	34. Playing Favorites

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **rinfics** : You know how I reaaaallly like kid!fic? OvO
> 
> Each of Sam's kids' favorite bridge crew babysitter (or just Jim, Bones, and Spock, whichever rocks your boat). From the kids' POV.

Pete’s favorite is Lt. Uhura. She rarely ever shows up—usually they only get to see Uncle Jim and Spock, sometimes Sulu because he has a cousin who works on Miranda with Dad.   
  
Sulu tells the best stories about Uncle Jim, or maybe he just tells the stories the best.   
  
But Uhura smiles and tells them these stories about the places, about the far reaches of the galaxy and she paints them so perfectly it’s like reading them out of a book.   
  
Sometimes he sits outside the living room and listens while she reads to Jules. 

* * *

  
Xander’s favorite is Spock. No—listen, hear him out.   
  
Because Spock’s Uncle Jim’s favorite.   
  
Um, duh, he totally is. But Spock never treats Xander like a stupid kid, you know? Even when he is. He just looks at him and tells him he’s illogical and shit and Xander winds up feeling guilty. It’s like that’s Spock’s superpower.   
  
But he’s also wicked strong and…it’s not like he plays with them or anything. But it’s kind of easy to be around Spock—walk around the zoo or in the park and not talk, or talk and not talk about  _anything_.  
  
Xander  _appreciates_  it.

* * *

  
Jules favorites are Mommy and Daddy.   
  
And then he likes best Uncle Jim, then Gran.   
  
But after that he likes the doctor. That’s what he calls them, even though Uncle Jim says it’s the wrong show and that the Doctor’s got clocks or something but the doctor, the real one? He’s good for playing with.   
  
Plays dinosaurs with Jules when everyone else is just you know doing grown up things.   
  
He’s Jules’ favorite.


	35. Just Imagine...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **stellarluna35** : I want to hear about the "mirror freakin' universes" from "And Now We Have Joanna McCoy's Dad!"

“All I’m gonna say on the subject,” McCoy says, flatly, after they’ve plied him with booze. What, they’re grown men and he upstaged them at bring-your-dad-to-school-day! “Is that I do not look good in a sash. And I’m not sure what the fuck a doctor needs with a saber, but I don’t want to find out.” He contemplates it. “And Spock should never have a goatee.”   
  
And the thing is, McCoy makes it a joke; focuses on little things, but there are things to be inferred. Like, an empire instead of a federation. Conquer instead of keep the peace: violence over all else. And you can’t help but look at a guy like McCoy, who’s a genius doctor, who gets all this acclaim and recognition and can fix everything this side of death and wonder how he’d use that—how that could be twisted.   
  
If he could take a healthy body and break it to its component parts just as easily. If he’d be friendly when he broke you the way he’s a bastard when he fixes you. If he’d smile instead of scowl.   
  
“Ted, another?” Joe asks.   
  
“Yeah. I’ll take another,” Ted agrees, and shakes the thought away, but before it’s gone he catches McCoy’s look: and it says,  _I know_  and  _Yeah_. “Yeah,” he repeats, and downs the whole thing. Doesn’t want to think about it.


	36. Allergic Reaction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **mirfainlasui** : Bone's on Jim and his allergies-when he first discovered how extensive they were, worst reaction, something like that!

The thing is, he drags him.   
  
Because he’s like a five year old.   
  
Because sure as shit Jim’s bullshitting, right? There’s no way he went into anaphylactic shot on the last round of immunizations.   
  
 _No one._  
  
Especially not this day and age.   
  
It’s the basic work up: seasonal flu, a new immunization for M-113’s newest virus, and an update to the Markus III avian flu.   
  
Three shots.   
  
There’ve been absolutely  _no_  worst case side effects, especially not in Terran humans.   
  
So Jim has no excuse.   
  
“Bones! I’ve got to take Davey’s shift—”  
  
“I’m horrified you know someone who actually goes by ‘Davey’,” McCoy informs him, tightening his fist in the back of the collar of Jim’s t-shirt. It must be riding up or pulling tight; they’re getting looks.   
  
Approving, because it’s San Francisco, but still. Looks.   
  
Clearly, if one of them was going to fuck the other through the wall, Jim’d be the one with a cock in his ass. McCoy’s known the asshole for four months and even he knows that much.  
  
“You’re such an infant.”   
  
“Bones, I’m telling you—”  
  
“Sit down,” he mutters, pulling the clinic door shut. Technically Jim’s not a member of Starfleet so this is illegal, but whatever.   
  
He gives Jim the hypos, and makes a note in Jim’s chart, turned away for a grand total of seventeen seconds.   
  
Turns out? That’s enough.   
  
“Bones?”  
  
“Mm?”   
  
“I can’t feel my feet.”   
  
“Don’t be—”  
  
 _”Bones,”_  Jim insists, and McCoy looks down and his feet are just hanging there.   
  
“Just your feet?” he asks. He hits Jim’s knees: no bounce.   
  
Okay…  
  
“Bones?”  
  
“Jim.”  
  
“I can’t feel my feet.”   
  
“Short-term memory loss and numb from the waist down, fucking brilliant,” McCoy mutters.   
  
“Bones?”  
  
“Yeah, Jim, I’m—shit!” He presses the emergency button and a staff nurse comes running in: Jim’s fucking  _seizing_  from… from what? From a very rare side effect that they only hypothosized could happen,  _Jesus Christ_.   
  
“Don’t you fucking dare,” he mutters at Jim’s straining white red face. “Give me—no, not that one, the other!”  
  
“That will give him heart failure!” one of the other doctors shouts.   
  
“Shut the fuck up—nurse, get that asshole out of my room!” he snarls as he applies the hypo.   
  
It takes seven more—combinations that he’s doing on the fly, all the while willing Jim not to die.   
  
Jim finally stops reacting, and McCoy just sits there, holding one of Jim’s hands in both of his and pressing his forehead to them because  _shit_.  
  
He’s not…equipped to handle this. He lost Jo and he fucking lost his whole life and it’s embarrassing as fuck but Jim  _is_  his life. The best part of it so far, because Starfleet’s a big part and it’s good, and he’s doing what he was meant to do, but this stupid fucking _kid_  is…necessary to him.   
  
He shifts, sits in the bed beside Jim, and begins to analyze the negative reaction: figures out what triggered what and starts making drawn out charts.  
  
“Aw,  _fuck_ ,” Jim groans seven and a half hours later. He rubs his eyes like a little kid and then blinks around. “So…went bad, huh?”  
  
“Jim, I will never fail to believe you again,” McCoy promises. “Now hack your medical records so I can finish this analysis.”   
  
Jim laughs and takes the PADD, gets his records and McCoy finishes the analysis while Jim drinks the water left on the table beside the bed and then shifts, because those kinds of reactions and recoveries make you groggy.   
  
“Okay,” Jim decides. “Let’s go.”   
  
McCoy unfolds wearily, and Jim watches him for a second, then says, “So, I don’t know about you, but I need a fucking drink.”   
  
“You’re buying,” McCoy says immediately. “Make me worry like that, shit the next seven rounds are on you.”   
  
“Bull _shit_ ,” Jim snorts, banging the door open and McCoy wonders when he’s going to realize that he’s shirtless with scrubs on instead of the jeans he came in with…and that he’s barefoot. “You almost killed me.”   
  
“Oh, I did not,” McCoy says, but he sounds guilty even to his own ears, and then Jim’s wrapped around him in a hug that no octopus would ever be able to rival.

When he pulls back he grins and says, “Neither of us is going to pay.”   
  
He drags McCoy to a bar that apparently allows no shirt and no shoes, and their little table at the edge of the club fills up with drinks from appreciative patrons as Jim slouches and grins. Shameless.   
  
“You’re a fucking whore, Kirk.”   
  
“That make you my pimp?” Jim demands, and McCoy gives in, drinks one of the froofy little drinks. Only thing this green should be absinthe.   
  
Jim almost died today, but here he is, alive and vibrant and fucking obnoxious, and McCoy pretty much loves that kid.   
  
And if anyone thinks they’re getting their hands on Jim’s medical care they’ve got another fucking thing coming.   
  
(McCoy gets brought up in front of a disciplinary board hearing because of this. He gets off because he a nurse testify that Jim was really seizing and possibly stroking, and he passes the chart around.   
  
Yeah. Fucking see if anyone else can handle this shit.)


	37. Chapter 37

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Anonymous** Spock's brother, Khan, or Q (or Squire...) meeting this Kirk and Spock pretty please.

um, so...fast and loose with canon ;)

* * *

This isn’t…how he anticipated meeting him. Reuiniting, as it were, but Spock had been such a solitary kid and Sybok had been…itching, he supposes. Looking for something less confining than the ways of his mother—of his father.   
  
His father had married Amanda Grayson and Sybok had thought, briefly, that this was an opportunity. And she was kind, if not surprised to find him. But she was not a woman ruled by her passions, and Sybok…well.   
  
But he’s back on New Vulcan—making amends or trying to help those who have fallen from Surak’s ways. They cannot afford to lose anyone to death, anyone else: if he can keep them alive by having them embrace their emotions, then perhaps it is…worthy.   
  
He doesn’t see Sarek. He has no desire to be disinherited again, but the younger half-human brother, he is eager to reunite with. To hear the stories of that day: they tell him Spock was instrumental—saved the elders and destroyed the ship that destroyed them.  
  
“Spock, someone at the door for you,” the human male shouts over his shoulder. He leans in the doorway, physically barring the way. He is in casual human wear: jeans and a gray t-shirt which has seen better days.   
  
“I am Sybok,” he introduces himself, and smiles. The human blinks, and then, without breaking eye contact shouts,   
  
“It’s a  _smiling Vulcan_  and not, like, that thing you do with your eyebrows when you’re laughing at me.”   
  
Spock comes out of the depths of the lavish home Sybok bestowed upon his favored son. “Sybok.”   
  
“Spock. You going to invite me in, little brother?”   
  
“Little  _brother_?” the man is standing, now, as though he could possibly stop Sybok from entering.   
  
“Jim, this is my half-brother, Sybok. Sybok, this is Captain James T. Kirk.”   
  
“Congratulations, Captain,” Sybok says, taking his hand. Jim Kirk looks at him like he suspects Sybok of madness. Sybok is used to that look, though not generally from humans. “Are you enjoying your stay?”  
  
“So far,” the man replies, and there is a hint of  _if you fuck this up for me, I will end you_.   
  
“I…how are you, Spock?” he asks, resentful for having to speak over Jim, but the man shows no inclination to move; to grant him entry. He’s willing to play along—he isn’t welcome here, because as much as Spock is Amanda Grayson’s son he is also Sarek’s, and he won’t forget nor forgive Sybok’s abandonment of them and their way of life; of him.   
  
But this is his younger brother, and embracing your emotions means acknowledging that you love your younger half-brother and the thought that he might have died almost killed you. So Sybok is here, where he is unwelcome.   
  
“I am in good health.”   
  
“But—” it’s pointless. Getting a gauge of Spock’s emotion is…impossible.   
  
Spock is looking at him implacably, and Jim Kirk shifts so they’re standing beside each other, both facing Sybok. They make a formidable pair.   
  
“Then I’m glad to hear it,” he decides. “I won’t keep you from your shore leave, I know it will be brief.”  
  
Spock doesn’t say he’ll miss him: doesn’t say that it was good to see him. He simply nods. “Live long and prosper, Sybok.”   
  
It always sounds like  _die in a fire_.   
  
“And you as well,” Sybok agrees, and  _means it_.


	38. Damage Control

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Anonymous** : Whomever has to take the reports and turn them into press releases. Because you know the people want to know. And the PR people? Totally go "oh $#!+, how do we spin this?" at each new stunt.

Not...really what you prompted, but I hope you like it anyway!

* * *

It would be easier if they weren’t  _famous_. If the press didn’t drop  _everything_  every time in order to report on the stupidest stuff.   
  
And sometimes, when Uhura sends down the reports carefully outlining what they can and can’t say…  
  
And what they can’t say is… it’s not like they want to tank him. They  _don’t_.   
  
And the press is so  _interested_  in their private lives: how are the Vulcans handling things? Is Kirk dating? Gay? Straight? Indiscriminate? Are Spock and Uhura dating?   
  
It’s the tabloids that are the worst, but the legitimate papers are just as nosy.   
  
And they’re all just waiting.   
  
So when Kirk interferes somewhere that maybe the Federation wasn’t going to, there’s a furry— _Is Kirk Challenging Federation Policy_?   
  
If Spock attends New Vulcan it’s  _Vulcan’s Favorite Son Returns to Oversee Progress on New Vulcan_.   
  
So they have to  _undersell_  them. Which is hard, because…have you seen what the  _Enterprise_ ’ crew is up to? And who they are? They deserve to be lauded, but they also don’t deserve to be crippled by a media that can’t seem to stop jizzing its pants at the mere thought of them.   
  
So it’s a challenge to introduce quiet blurbs: status updates. For ever other ship it’s no big deal if they end up orbiting a planet a day longer: if it’s the  _Enterprise_  it’s suddenly a  _huge_  deal. Inquiries upon inquiry; invasive questions.   
  
So where it would be one person to file a report it now takes three to talk everyone back down from the sheer unbridled speculation.   
  
It’s not that they don’t love doing it—it’s not that this isn’t what makes their jobs interesting. It would just be nice if they could note that the  _Enterprise_  arrived somewhere on time without having to answer a question about Kirk’s dick.


	39. Chapter 39

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **grumblclamorcat** : How about Kessler-whatever-his-name-is (Scotty's sidekick) - what does he think of all this insanity? ;-)

“Got any…twos?”   
  
“Go fish.”   
  
“Ach.”   
  
“Threes?”  
  
Scotty hands it over begrudgingly, and Keenser smirks to himself. The deck doesn’t have any twos.   
  
Last night, it lacked sevens. And Scotty hasn’t caught on.  
  
They’re on Delta Vega on an under-equipped research facility. The generator’s functioning at half capacity, and they need to keep it that way because of the servers, which are always about seven seconds from overheating. Approximately.   
  
Keenser’s calculations have it at 8.02.   
  
Scotty’s are at 7.28.   
  
But the point is, they’re freezing. And Keenser’s hidden the other three twos. And they’re two of the greatest minds of the generation, stuck here on this freezing rock.


	40. Chapter 40

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Anonymous** : Any chance of a Spock POV - thoughts, etc - of the meeting with Frank at the end of "Cinderella's Wicked Stepmother"?

Jim is agitated.   
  
It is distressing, given that he was only meant to go to the local “hardware store” (which he had assured Spock might have what they were looking for) to get a replacement part for the replicator.   
  
And so he comes out of the old house, through the screen door and says, “Jim, have you acquired the—” and changes, because Frank Hallie is behind Jim, looking simultaneously angry and frightened. “—Hello. I do not believe we have been introduced.”  
  
“I’m—” the man begins, taking an abortive step forward.   
  
“Spock, this is Frank,” Jim says as Spock presses his shoulder against Jim’s. He lifts an eyebrow, and Spock knows precisely who this man is. He knows that even now Jim is unsettled by his presence; not afraid precisely, but in fight or flight—which with Jim means fight, and usually horrific consequences for the rest of them.   
  
And it would be very easy to eliminate the man—he wants to been there, most illogically. His childhood pain had been internal; that of peers.   
  
He had never doubted the love of either of his parents: had known his mother adored him even when he was too young to know what that meant. His father he had known did not understand him, but loved him. He had…always been highly secure in that one fact.   
  
Jim had not. And this man, who should have been as a father to him, failed him.  _Damaged_  him.   
  
Would that Christopher Pike had taken Jim in earlier.   
  
"Well. I'll let you boys enjoy your evening," Frank Hallie manages, heading back down the lane as fast as he can go without running.  
  
Spock watches him go.   
  
“You don’t have to protect me,” Jim says, nudging him lightly and sliding his hands into the waistband of Spock’s trousers. “I could take him.”   
  
“I am aware of that,” Spock agrees, allowing himself to be pulled in. “It merely occurs to me that I wish it were possible that I had been there.”   
  
Jim rests his head against Spock’s shoulder, breath hot as it gusts out in laughter. “I would have killed you.”   
  
“I disagree, even as a child I would have been stronger and a year older.”   
  
“Spock,” Jim laughs, kissing him. “I’ve  _mellowed_  with age.”   
  
And then he disentangles and leaves Spock in his wake, contemplating a universe in which  _this_  is the mellow Jim Kirk. 


End file.
